Fellow blogger, conservative Wisconsinite (?; my computer recognized it, so it must be the proper term), and new father Neon Prime Time asks, as the last of a series of questions:
It's hot out, I think I'm hallucinating. I once thought that I could Live in a country ...
6.) where I could practice Christianity without being ridiculed
First of all, I do not believe that being a Christian in America leads to ridicule. For the most part, most Americans are respectful (sometimes overly so) of religious differences, preferring to live and let live to confronting such differences with some kind of demand or account. Even so, there is a certain amount of anti-Christian animus in our public sphere, and much of it, I feel I have to admit, is richly deserved. This hardly counts as "persecution", however, considering the realities around the world. In the past couple years there have been reports of churches burned in Pakistan and Indonesia (two officially Muslim nations, the latter the third most populous country on the planet, and the largest Muslim nation in the world), and several reported incidents of religiously-motivated murder, rape, and forced conversion. Of course, Israel also has a certain unofficial anti-Christian animus, which always makes me sigh when I think of how much fundamentalist Christians boost Israel in this country, only to be treated with impolite disdain by Israeli officials once they go there. If you don't believe me, just check out what these same folks have to say about what happens when they try to do "mission work" in Israel. . .
What might be a Christian response to the reality of persecution of our co-religionists in other countries? First, I do believe that we should remember them in our prayers. Second, I do believe that we should protest loudly, especially when officialdom turns a blind eye to such outrages. Third, I believe we should be thankful that there are still witnesses (the meaning of the word "martyr") to the faith out there. I do believe that Jesus let his followers know that they would be despised, persecuted, even killed, for their faith. I also believe that Paul reassured various communities who were undergoing persecution (in Rome in particular) that their present troubles were as nothing to the coming kingdom of God. The reality of persecution, and the hope inherent in the faith in the crucified and risen Jesus is the basis for, among other things, the continued fight of liberation theology against the twin terrors of official oppression and hierarchical demands for silence, especially embodied in the current Pontiff, whose history includes running Leonardo Boff out of the Church.
I really don't have much more to say about this. I believe that working through various official and NGO channels (especially Amnesty International, although I don't provide monetary support for the latter for their continued refusal, during the 1980's, to call for the release of Nelson Mandela) plus the ever-present opportunity of prayer is about all we can do.
