Persecution Chic

It's an unexamined article of faith (literally) for most "Evangelicals" that they will be persecuted.  And we know Jesus did promise many times that those who follow Him will be persecuted (Matthew 10:16-23, for example: verified in II Timothy 3:12, and elsewhere).

It seems one of those true teachings of Jesus that we like to hear backwards: from our end of His teaching.  Jesus says His followers will be persecuted.  We hear instead that persecution proves we are Jesus' followers...glorifying us.

If Jesus' teaching worked the backwards way we want to hear it, the greatest Christians in America the last two centuries were the early Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses in World War I, and Topeka's Westboro Baptist Church today.  Persecution does not prove who is Jesus' true follower.

It's pride that we hear Jesus that way, of course.  Who wouldn't be proud of being persecuted, if persecution proves you are following Jesus ?

Self-deception is also necessarily involved, enabling pride.  Any human being convinced he has anything in himself to be proud of has to overlook a lot of contrary evidence.  But self-deception can make that evidence disappear, or minimize it sufficiently to let us convince ourselves we are a "good" person.

That judgement is God's alone: and His judgement is the only one that actually matters.  But self-deception, well- and long-practiced, can even satisfy us we meet God's standard.  And how much more could we convince ourselves it's so, than if we are being persecuted, as Jesus said His followers would be ?

There's consequently a kind of "persecution chic" among Evangelicals: a desire to be persecuted, and a desire to be seen as persecuted.  Why wouldn't there be ?  It plays exactly to our cherished pride and self-deception.  It "baptizes" pride and self-deception as adjuncts of our Christianity...rather than treating them as enemies that must be painfully and radically eradicated from our hearts.

Ordinary American Christians...to this point...have always had incredibly easy faith-lives: there's very little actual persecution anyone can point to.  But the "fake news" technique works for persecution the same way it works for event-Truth  and scripture-Truth: it can be manufactured by interpretation.

Philippians 1:15 attests that there have always been some "preaching Christ even from envy and strife."  There are still Christians who are obnoxious jerks (my observation is that their flawed lives usually go hand-in-hand with flawed doctrine).  And I've heard more than a few of them boast of being persecuted for witnessing Christ.

I'm skeptical of that interpretation.  People usually hate obnoxious jerks because they're obnoxious jerks.

Lacking a personal persecution merit-badge, many ordinary American Christians have embraced the interpretational class-action persecution of a "War on Christmas."

And there actually are occasional instances of an obnoxious jerk, atheist or Jewish or Muslim, who makes a public cause of his outrage at the "Merry Christmas !" banner in the local public high school.  Even more, there's a perception that "political correctness" forbids saying "Merry Christmas."  "Perception," because I've seen no verifiable evidence that supports the belief "they won't let us say that anymore."  (But who needs evidence for their perception, when the lie has assured us every one of the past eight Christmases that President Obama's issued an executive order forbidding Americans to say "Merry Christmas.")

Pressed on what they've suffered from the "War on Christmas," most Christians will say they're persecuted in being denied their "religious rights."

Never mind that "Christmas" is not really, in any historical view, a Christian holiday.  Or that most American atheists and Jews (and even some acculturated Muslims) celebrate Christmas. Or that their sloganeering insistence that "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" shows deceived Christians realize Jesus is tangential to most Americans' perception of the holiday.

That "The War on Christmas" specifically targets Christians is questionable.  That it is "persecution" in any sense seems whining exaggeration, and nothing at all that Jesus meant by "persecution."  Has any American been tortured for celebrating Christmas, or ostracized by family and community ?  Has anyone been sentenced to jail, or to death, for saying "Merry Christmas" ?

And we'd be rightly skeptical that any such things could ever happen.  Society only persecutes those at odds with it.  Would an American actually be persecuted for celebrating Christmas, when America loves its Christmas ?


If the "persecution" of "The War on Christmas" comes down to Christians being denied their "freedom of religion:" did Jesus consider being denied our "rights" is "persecution" ?  Did He promise us "freedom of religion"...or was that the American constitution ?  Most importantly: did Jesus command us to "stand up for our rights" ?

It's a political matter, not a Christian one.  (And even as a political matter, only relevant to Christians of a single nation for the past couple centuries, not to the universal Body of Christ in all times and all nations.)  But "The War on Christmas" (and "political correctness" generally) has been a very successful political deception aimed at Christians, because it casts "our rights" as Jesus' teaching.  Most American Christians don't love Truth enough to notice the lie.

It succeeds because it plays to the spiritual pathology of American Christians' "persecution chic."  We have not suffered for Christ's sake: certainly not for speaking Truth, as He IS: but we can yet convince ourselves (or let political deceivers convince us) that "our rights" have been denied us.

Our "right" to say "Merry Christmas," for example.  And if an anecdotal someone, somewhere, is occasionally brave enough to say they find that greeting insensitive in some contexts, we can throw an angry "Merry Christmas !!" in their face to show we will not be denied our "rights."  But more importantly, we can be proud of being persecuted...exactly as Jesus said His true followers would be.