Why does religious persecution exist?

The question is more than academic, for the answer can help us grasp the larger meaning of the stories of oppression we hear from Egypt, China, Eastern Europe, or scores of other countries. And getting a fix on the “why” can guide us as we work on the “how” of making a difference.

We must understand at the outset that religious repression is ultimately rooted in our fallen nature, in original sin. Religious intolerance and harassment seem to come naturally to humankind. Persecution grows out of the ancient enmity that God promised the serpent “between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed” (Gen. 3:15). Those who hate God will hate those who love him. No constitution, United Nations declaration, or powerful army can completely protect believers from this enmity.

While we rejoice over positive trends in parts of the world then, we also remember that Scripture is clear that religious persecution will continue. Jesus warned, “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you” (John 15:20). Second Timothy 3:12 puts the matter bluntly: “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”

Of Prejudice And Power

It would be simplistic, of course, to argue that the causes of religious persecution are purely spiritual. Cultural and political aspects intertwine with the spiritual roots in complex ways. Any effective response to religious persecution must take into account that religious persecution stems from two sinful impulses with cultural and political components: prejudice and the will to power.

Prejudice is rooted in the fear of “the other.” In this, religious prejudice is similar to other prejudices, whether racial, ethnic, or nationalistic. The prejudiced exclude those who are different by arguing that the “different” are irresponsible, fanatical, or even evil. Or the oppressor may claim the presence of a malign conspiracy of some alien power. Of course, if the group is small enough, and if the larger society is relatively prosperous and stable, “the other” may be tolerated. But hard times can lead to virulent xenophobia. It is the poorest Muslim populations, for example, that are now most attracted to the anti-Western and anti-Christian violence of extremist movements within Islam.

Prejudice is frequently cultivated by demagogues as a way of shifting blame for bad circumstances (“scapegoating”). Hitler did this with the Jews, of course. And the Ayatollah Khomeini did it with Westerners. This plays on the fear of the other, but it originates in the will to power.

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If prejudice provokes a defensive reaction against religious diversity, then the second of the twin causes, the drive for power, can lead to aggressive attacks. Governments staking a claim to their peoples’ ultimate loyalty cannot tolerate religious groups that put loyalties elsewhere. Ambitious Roman emperors, the Nazis, certain Latin American dictators, and the Communists all had the same strategy toward Christians who uphold freedom of the individual conscience and independence for the church. Such Christians must be induced to collaborate with the regime, driven underground, or eliminated.

Religious faith offers the ultimate challenge to the totalitarian state. Biblical religion subordinates every claim to the claim of the Creator. It posits a transcendent authority that checks, and finally judges, all other authorities. Dictators and tyrants rightly fear One who “will shatter kings on the day of his wrath” and “execute judgment among the nations.” This is one reason religious persecution is in some sense inevitable in a fallen world.

But with the waning of certain totalitarian Communist governments, some may argue, don’t we live in a more tolerant climate? Must we still be concerned about threats to worldwide religious liberty? Two pressing realities make our efforts all the more important.

Persecuted, But Not Forsaken

Scripture offers more than insights on the reasons for persecution; it also gives comfort to those who are persecuted. Paul offers a stirring testimony to God’s power to sustain suffering: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed … persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies” (1 Cor. 4:9–10).

We must repudiate, however, a naïve romanticizing of religious persecution. “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you” does not mean that persecution itself is a blessing. Herbert Schlossberg in Called to Suffer, Called to Triumph notes, “People who grow rhapsodic about the ‘purity’ of the persecuted church are not likely to have seen much of it.” Christians who suffer persecution, he says, “show a confusing combination of saintliness and sin, courage and fear, wisdom and foolishness.” No observer that I know of argues the case that the church in the former Soviet Union, for example, is especially pure or exemplary.

Nevertheless, those of us who, for now, enjoy relative freedom can learn much from some who have endured persecution and who have been sustained by the power of God. I owe a great debt to those I have met through my work as a human-rights watcher: Irina Ratushinskaya, Gleb Yakunin, Armando. Valladares, Nicolae Georghita, and many others, whose lives have challenged me to new obedience, faith, and gratitude. The debt can only be discharged by redoubled efforts on behalf of those who suffer still.

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By Diane Knippers.

An Ongoing Battle In The Communist World

First, the battle for religious freedom is far from over in Communist countries. True, it is difficult even now to grasp the enormous changes of the last three years. Marxism-Leninism, the twentieth century’s scourge on religion, is being rooted out of its heartland in Eastern and Central Europe and is on the defensive elsewhere. Our first response must be praise to a merciful God who is setting free the captives. But thanksgiving must not lead to complacency.

Religious persecution in Communist countries is still fueled by virulent prejudice, for example. The Chinese Communist party played on fear of foreigners when, in February 1991, it issued a directive against “illegal religious activities,” targeting groups that relate to “hostile forces abroad” and that use “religion as an important means of promoting ‘peaceful evolution’ ” through “infiltration and sabotage.”

More than prejudice, desire for power motivates religious repression under communism. Since Stalin, totalitarian governments have, in varying degrees and with varying success, turned to a particularly destructive tactic—the effort to subvert or co-opt the church.

China, for instance, attempts to control the church through the Three Self Patriotic movement. Vietnam has established state-run religious associations that fulfill the government’s aims. According to a 1977 party statement, the purpose of religious associations is to influence religious groups “to implement political tasks set forth by the party.” Many religious leaders are arrested and re-arrested, and often interned in Vietnam’s notorious re-education camps.

In the 1950s, North Korea, once called the “Albania of Asia,” eradicated all public expression of the Christian faith. Now it too boasts a minuscule state-sponsored church, but this re-emergence of a church appears linked to the public-relations needs of North Korea in its campaign for reunification with the South.

Repression still continues in Cuba, as well, despite Castro’s attempt to reach a new rapprochement with Christian churches. Relations between the government and religious leaders remain cool.

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Even in the former Communist countries of Europe, it will take a generation or more to overcome the moral devastation of decades of antireligious teaching, persecution, and subversion of the church.

Islam And Religious Liberty

A second threat looming on the religious-freedom horizon comes from Islam. Unlike communism, which has attempted to dispel the very concept of religion, a resurgent Islam thrives on religious zealotry.

Some estimate that by the end of the century, Islam will encompass one-quarter of the world’s population. It is growing rapidly in both numbers and influence around the world, throughout the Middle East, across the Asian subcontinent, and pushing down into southern Africa. Through immigration, high birth rates, and conversion, Islam is gaining adherents in North America and Europe. Some of the responses to the growth of Islam in traditionally Christian nations—racism and prejudice, which lead to discrimination against Muslims or Arabs—must be roundly condemned. But the need to sustain tolerance in our own society must not be allowed to eclipse the mandate to seek justice for religious minorities in Muslim-dominated areas.

Both prejudice and the will to power drive religious persecution in Islamic regions. But Islam is inextricably bound with the political realm. The heart of Islam is its law, shari‘a, its code of behavior for society. This socioreligious integration can manifest itself in extreme nationalism, imposition of shari‘a law on non-Muslims, and state-sponsored religious persecution. In extreme cases, talk of Islamic jihād—holy war—has been used to justify heinous terrorist acts.

Of course, Islamic societies vary a great deal, and exceptions may be found to almost any generalization. In some instances, non-Muslim minority groups are tolerated by Islamic regimes, though customarily with denial of equal political rights.

Under the Islamic system of shari‘a law, conversion from Islam to another religion is punishable by law, as is proselytizing. Because of the close links between the religious and political realms, converts to Christianity are considered not just religious heretics, but political traitors, and so subject to the death penalty.

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