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Do Christians Have a Persecution Complex?

October 18, 2015     Time: 11:21
Do Christians Have a Persecution Complex?

Summary

Should Christians always expect persecution?

Transcript Do Christians Have a Persecution Complex?

 

KEVIN HARRIS: Dr. Craig, Christians in the West are often accused of having a persecution complex. We think that we are being persecuted because of our views. But when you consider what we often take to be persecution compared with church history and compared to what is going on in other countries, it so pales in comparison it is almost embarrassing to use it in the same sentence. What I would like to know from you is, while the Bible says that we can expect persecution, I wonder if it is possible to build a society that limits persecution where persecution isn’t a problem? Is that why perhaps in the West (or in America in particular) that persecution has been very limited?

DR. CRAIG: It certainly is true – isn’t it? – that the kinds of persecution that we might experience here in the United States is trivial compared to what our Christian brothers and sisters in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Libya are experiencing where they and their children may be brutally murdered for their faith in Christ as well as displaced and discriminated against. So the kind of persecution that we endure is really, really very trivial compared to what they endured. But I do notice that when Jesus talks about persecution in the Beatitudes he includes persecution that is merely verbal and not life-threatening. He says in Matthew 5:11, “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven. For so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Here Jesus includes in persecution insulting words and evil false rumors that are spread about a person. These are part of suffering for Christ’s sake as well. Certainly people in our American culture, especially in a politically correct mentality, will suffer this kind of verbal persecution in standing for Christ today. I, myself, have been the object of this sort of venomous rhetoric. I don’t read the Internet – what it says about me – but people will often say to me, How can you put up with the vile and hateful things that are said about you on the Internet? I am blissfully ignorant of those things, but I take comfort in this promise that I can rejoice and be glad when people revile me in that way. It is a blessing from God.

KEVIN HARRIS: Christ, as one missionary put it, transforms a culture. I think the goal is to bring people to Christ in a society that would minimize persecution. But we can always expect it at some level as long as we are sojourners on Earth.

DR. CRAIG: Right. Another passage in Scripture that is relevant here is 2 Timothy 3:12 where Paul, writing to Timothy, says, “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” He is probably thinking there not simply of the sort of physical suffering that he experienced in his lifetime, but the sort of persecution that maybe Jesus was talking about that might befall any believer in Christ Jesus at any time in history. That kind of persecution is said to be our lot as Christians in a non-Christian world. But certainly a culture which has been transformed by the Gospel in the way that Western culture in general, and American culture in particular, has been is going to be a lot less dangerous than, for example, living in a Marxist culture such as you had in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe prior to the fall of the Iron Curtain and such as you have in North Korea today or in Muslim countries around the world like those I’ve already mentioned where Christians risk their very lives because these sorts of atheistic or Islamic cultures have not been leavened by the ethos of the Gospel and so practice violent persecution against Christian believers.[1]

KEVIN HARRIS: I think often of a kind of a modern model that we have of some Christian men and women who are very powerful and influential and God has blessed them with wealth and influence. They are humanitarians; they work hard for the Gospel. And they are far from being persecuted. They are in a society that God has seemingly blessed. We kind of aspire to be people like that – influential men who have good standing with society. But even they can experience some of this social ostracism. Beyond that, the Bible teaches that we have an enemy of the soul. So we can expect perhaps some persecution from spiritual forces.

DR. CRAIG: I would characterize that more as trials or temptations. Those may be far more insidious and dangerous than persecutions. It may be for the people that you’ve talked about the real danger for those people might lie in pride and self-importance and grandiose self-images as opposed to persecution such as Christians in the countries I described face. There it may not be persecution which is really the enemy, but these other sorts of temptations that can really undermine a person and destroy him.

KEVIN HARRIS: We seem to be in a position to help those who are being persecuted around the world. Maybe talk about our need to do that. One thing probably is to read some of the missionary works and be aware of that persecution.

DR. CRAIG: There are relief organizations, too, that you can donate to – Christian organizations that are working in Jordan and Lebanon to help, for example, with the relief of these wretched people that have been displaced and find themselves now in these refugee camps, or in the Sudan where there has been persecution again from Islamic forces. We in the West do have the opportunity to use our wealth at least to help donate to Christian causes that are involved in the relief of this sort of persecution.

KEVIN HARRIS: Can we appeal to the government as well to do something about it?

DR. CRAIG: That is certainly true, isn’t it? It is not just a matter of private charity but of exerting political pressure on governments to do something more. That is certainly appropriate and important to do – by how we vote and what we tell our elected officials.

KEVIN HARRIS: When you look back at the history of the church we see from time to time that God has perhaps allowed persecution to spread the Gospel. When we look at the book of Acts, persecution tended to dispersed the church a little.

DR. CRAIG: It did.

KEVIN HARRIS: There was a way that that backfired against the opponents of the Christian faith, too.

DR. CRAIG: Right. It is not always the case. For example, North Africa and the Middle East were once in Christian hands. These were at least nominally Christian nations. But through the wars of religion perpetrated by Muslim forces these countries fell into the Islamic orbit. Christianity suffered its greatest geographical loss that it has ever experienced during those years of Muslim conquest. Europe itself was threatened. The Muslim forces were at the gates of Vienna. Spain was Muslim for some centuries. So it is not true that persecution always aids the church and results in church growth. It can be very destructive of the work of the church. But we believe this is all in the providence of God ultimately in that his providence will work itself out in time over history. In other cases, persecution has abetted the growth of the church. Probably the prime example here is China. When China closed in 1948 with the communist revolution and missionaries were expelled and the Bibles were burned, people thought that Christianity was basically extinguished in China. Lo and behold what happened was that during those intervening years the underground church grew and grew and despite the cultural revolution in China in which tens of millions of people lost their lives the church flourished under this sort of persecution. When China finally opened again to the West it was found that the church had grown to tens of millions of people. Some would say today that the church in China may number 100 million people and it continues to grow. In some cases persecution does backfire on the perpetrators, but that is not always the case.[2]

KEVIN HARRIS: Bottom line: we need to pray for those who are persecuted in the world today, do what we can to help, and also realize that we can always depend on God’s grace when we are persecuted.

DR. CRAIG: And I think to learn the lesson of turning the other cheek. When Jesus says if someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. I don’t think he is teaching so much about passivity and non-violence as he is imagining someone giving you the back of his hand. It is a slap of disrespect. If he is striking you on the right cheek, a right-handed person is giving you the back of his hand. It is an insult. Jesus is saying if somebody does that turn the other cheek to him as well. Don’t insult him back. Don’t return reviling for reviling or cursing for cursing, but experience and accept that kind of treatment in the name of Christ and you’ll be blessed for it.[3]

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    Total Running Time: 11:22 (Copyright © 2015 William Lane Craig)