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Persecution Complex

John Dickson – Studio:

That was the trailer for the 2014 Christian cinematic thriller Persecuted, starring James Remar as embattled pastor John Luther. In a nutshell: Luther opposes a piece of legislation that would make it illegal for Christians to claim that what they believe is “the whole and only truth”. In an effort to silence him, an American Senator frames Luther for rape and murder. Of course, you’ll have to watch the film to discover what happens next! Or don’t. Persecuted was panned by critics, and on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, it has an approval rating … of 0%! Here’s a scathing review from the New York Times – delivered by Undeceptions in-house film critic, Director Mark:

Director Mark:

This terrible attempt at a political thriller for the religious right is aimed not at Christians in general but at a certain breed of them, the kind who feel as if the rest of the world were engaged in a giant conspiracy against their interpretation of good and truth.

John Dickson – Studio:

And just in that short quote we’ve landed in the middle of the culture wars. In parts of the West – yes, the United States, but also in my home country, Australia – some Christians use the term ‘persecution’ as a rallying cry to fight for their rights. Part of the problem is a definitional one. The word “Persecution” can be manipulative, misleading, and inflammatory.  But that doesn’t mean persecution doesn’t exist. The Oxford English Dictionary—the only standard Undeceptions uses—defines ‘persecution’ as: “Oppression, esp. on the grounds of religious faith, political belief, race, etc.; the action of pursuing or persecuting a person or group with hostile intent.” The earliest recorded occurrence, by the way, is from 1350. The word is from the Latin persecutio — to chase or pursue to cause them harm, which is the exact equivalent of the NT Greek διώκω, “to pursue or chase”– with the sense of chasing to injure. That’s persecution: to pursue in order to harm. A random outburst at someone who happens to be a Christian isn’t persecution. The word implies both intention and decisiveness on the part of the persecutor. But to count as persecution ,there also has to be the fact or potential of harm to the persecuted. That’s why an atheist club that meets together to say mean things about Christianity is not persecuting Christians. I’m going to go out on a limb and give my own considered definition of persecution. I put it together at the very end of preparing this episode. 

Christian persecution is sustained or decisive action by those with the power to cause harm, aimed at injuring Christians legally, physically, or socially because of their identity or practices.

At the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5), Jesus told his students, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you (διώκω) and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad …”.  Here the sense is broad–not quite hunting down to kill, but nor is it simple criticism either. In Acts 8, though, we’re told that a “persecution” broke out against the church, and here the word refers to searching for, arresting, and in some cases killing Christians. Because of the flexibility of the word, sometimes Christians today throw the word around merely to refer to any kind of pressure they feel. It’s true that there are some troubling headwinds for Christianity in the west. Secularism continues to flex its muscles. And, as a result, some Christians who’ve had a lot of power and privilege (for centuries) can feel pretty put out. Things that make us feel uncomfortable must be persecution. Confession time. When I was a new Christian (teens), I frequently prayed and read my Bible when I should have been doing jobs around the house. And I remember one Saturday morning my mum (not a Xian) bursting into my room when I was meant to be raking the leaves, and there I was praying and reading. She yelled at me and stormed out. And I remember thinking, “It’s like Jesus said. I’m being persecuted.” NO!!! This wasn’t persecution. It wasn’t sustained or decisive action aimed at injuring Christians legally, physically, or socially because of their identity or practices. This was a ‘persecution complex’ on my part. And there’s a corporate version of it that can infect the church as a whole — where every slight, every criticism, every disagreement is seen through the prism of ancient persecution. And one terrible effect of the persecution complex is that it takes the western church’s eyes off the real persecution going on in other parts of the world. AND it does the same for wider society. Because the western church sometimes cries wolf — or persecution! — the watching world thinks it’s implausible that any Christians anywhere are suffering real persecution. Christianity is the bully-religion. There can’t be Christians arrested, tortured, and killed simply for being Christian! Well, in this episode, we’re going to take a look back at what persecution looked like in the early church, what Jesus taught about persecution, and what persecution looks like in the world today. And why every Christian today should give up the persecution complex. I’m John Dickson, and this is Undeceptions.

Undeceptions theme

Media – MythVision podcast

John Dickson – Studio:

That’s Professor Candida Moss who now works at the University of Birmingham as a professor of theology. She’s talking on the MythVision podcast about her 2013 book The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians invented a story of martyrdom.  What she’s talking about is what I too have heard a fair bit of in my time. In some quarters of Christianity, there is a tendency to exaggerate the persecution of the early Christians. In the minds of some people, persecution in the Roman Empire was relentless. At times, this victim mentality has been used to help Christians today cope in a world that increasingly doesn’t believe.  Personally, I think the victim-mentality is a terrible way to cope.  Moss says she’s trying to correct that view. Fair enough. But in doing so, she swings too hard the other way, minimising the evidence for early Christian persecution almost beyond recognition. Her book made a pretty big impact at the time. But it was ultimately pretty clickbaity—the historical reviewers were not nearly as positive as the popular media. Professor Moss knows full well that while Christians weren’t routinely persecuted by the Romans (and no historian says that, anyway) we have pretty good evidence that Christians were formally repressed on several occasions in the early period. And that experience left an indelible mark on Christian consciousness. My first guest today is one of the most respected historians of this period – late Roman antiquity, roughly from AD 200-500. If you want someone to talk to about early Christian persecution, she’s the one you want. 

John meeting Elizabeth

John Dickson – Studio:

That’s Elizabeth DePalma Digeser, professor of Roman History/Late Antiquity at the University of California in Santa Barbara. This is the first of two episodes you’ll hear with Beth. Later in the year, we’ve slated an episode on the great Christian philosopher Lactantius – Beth is an expert on his life, too. For this episode, though, she’s focusing on Rome in the third century – a period that saw the first widespread, state-sanctioned persecution of Christianity. Her book on the subject is called A Threat to Public Piety: Christians, Platonists, and the Great Persecution – It’s amazing! Before we get to the third century, though, we’re going to look briefly at what persecution looked like for the very earliest Christians in the first two centuries after the death and resurrection of Jesus. 

Reading

…To get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude were convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man’s cruelty, that they were being destroyed. Tacitus, ‘Annals’ 

John Dickson – Studio:

That was the great Roman biographer Tacitus, writing at the start of the second century about Emperor Nero’s killing of Christians in AD 64. It’s the first example of state persecution of Christians. The rumour Nero was trying to quell was that he was personally responsible for the Great Fire of Rome, which destroyed huge portions of the city. Lots of people thought he ordered it, so he could do some rebuilding (which he did end up doing). But he chose to blame the Christians instead. As Tacitus reports though, no one believed the Christians had started the fire. In any case, this persecution – and it does deserve that title I think – was targeted, and brutal. But it was not widespread. About 50 years later, there was another outbreak.

John Dickson:
There are two pretty severe persecutions. Uh, that we have very good evidence for one in Bythinia at the dawn of the second century where, where Pliny of the younger. Yeah. Uh, the governor of that region gives us excellent evidence in his own letter of, and, and the way he talks of it right, is there are so many people he’s having to arrest and kill and send off to Rome. He’s starting to feel bad about it. And then the other one in the 250s, Decius and Valerian. So my, my question to you is can you say something about the Plini persecution? What do we know of it? Yeah. What, what, what was his problem with Christians? 

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
So Pliny, we know about this in great detail because he writes to the Emperor Trajan, Pliny’s serving as governor in Bythina. And it’s come to his attention. He’s there actually not to deal with Christians at all. He doesn’t know about Christians, really. He’s come there because the accounts are out of whack. He’s really there to audit the records. So it’s come to his attention that there are a group of people who call themselves Christians who aren’t participating in the proper rituals, probably to the emperor. And what exactly that is, we don’t know. Maybe these are citizens and they’re supposed to perform sacrificial rituals, maybe burning incense before coming in, in front of a Roman authority, making or something like that. So he writes to Trajan because he doesn’t know what to do.

Reading

It is my practice, my lord, to refer to you all matters concerning which I am in doubt. For who can better give guidance to my hesitation or inform my ignorance? I have never participated in trials of Christians. I therefore do not know what offenses it is the practice to punish or investigate, and to what extent. And I have been not a little hesitant as to whether there should be any distinction on account of age or no difference between the very young and the more mature; whether pardon is to be granted for repentance, or, if a man has once been a Christian, it does him no good to have ceased to be one; whether the name itself, even without offenses, or only the offenses associated with the name are to be punished.

John Dickson – Studio:

Pliny explains in his letter that he’s executing so many Christians he’s worried it might not be the right thing, or perhaps he’s not following the correct Roman procedure. He says he interrogated those who were denounced as Christians and those who persisted in saying that they were, he executed. Unless they were Roman citizens, in which case he sent them to Rome. He goes on to say that the accusations spread, writing, “A great many individuals of every age and class, both men and women are being brought to trial.”

Reading

For the moment this is the line I have taken with all persons brought before me on the charge of being Christians. I have asked them in person if they are Christians, and if they admit it, I repeat the question a second and a third time, with a warning of the punishment awaiting them. If they persist, I order them to be led away for execution; for whatever the nature of their admission, I am convinced that their stubbornness and unshakable obstinacy ought not to go unpunished… This made me decide that it was all the more necessary to extract the truth by torture from two slave-women, whom they call deaconesses. I found nothing but a degenerate sort of cult (superstitio) carried to extravagant lengths.

—Pliny to Trajan, AD 112.

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
So this is really the first glimmer of what you could call, you know it’s, it’s not, it’s it’s persecution in the sense that it’s coming from a Roman authority. Um, he’s certainly not going door to door and rooting people out. This has come to his attention …

John Dickson:
People were trying to make that happen though, weren’t they? So, uh, publishing pamphlets with the names of Christians – Demetrius at number three is a Christian. 

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
That’s right. And so he’s sensitive to that. Yeah. So he doesn’t, and, and

John Dickson:
Because he is quite a just man. He’s a gentleman.

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
And Trajan is for his part too, because Trajan says, you know, by no means are you, are you to hunt people down. So he,It’s not to go any further. If somebody comes to your attention through the proper channels, then this is the proper way to deal with them. The complaint against them is mostly because of superstition, of excess religiosity. Not in the good Roman way. There’s some concern, probably for disrespect of Roman Imperial authority, I would guess. Yeah. But this is one of the first incidents that we know of and it’s very well recorded. It’s clear that it was, you know specifically, but because they were Christian.

John Dickson – Studio:

We also have Trajan’s letter back to Pliny, telling Pliny to carry on killing Christians so long as Pliny doesn’t go aroMund pursuing anonymous tip-offs about the Christians. That would be un-Roman. Fast forward about 100 years, to about AD 215 and we have an open letter from the lawyer and theologian Tertullian, to Scapula, the Proconsul of Carthage, a Roman province in North Africa. Tertullian refers to the torture and execution of ordinary believers. And he boldly says to the Governor: 

Reading

 We are not in any great perturbation or alarm about the persecutions we suffer from the ignorance of men; for we have attached ourselves to this sect, fully accepting the terms of its covenant …  For our religion commands us to love even our enemies, and to pray for those who persecute us … It is peculiar to Christians alone to love those that hate them.

John Dickson – Studio:

Tertullian goes on to mention what might be the first reference to mass Christian non-violent action: he threatens a mass turnout of Christians in Carthage before the governor, and makes clear that Scapula will have to kill thousands of citizens if he wants to put down Christianity. The persecution of Christians in Carthage seems to end with the end of Scapula’s rule. Fast forward another 40 or so years, and we find ourselves in the middle of the Crisis of the Third Century. Emperor Decius comes into power in AD 249 – he’s one of the 20 or so emperors in that 50-year period. 

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
So Decius comes into power, and things are a mess. And, and we know things are a mess because we have, um, letters from, for example, Cyprian in Carthage saying that whenever there’s famine you know, the, the, the, the Romans are saying “To the lions” and Tertullian even earlier says something similar. And I think a good Roman Emperor looking around his domain, um, there’s been plague as a result, there’s been famine, there’s invasion. There’s been a Civil War … might well think that he’d lost the trust of the gods. Right? And so what he calls for is a supplicatio. And I wouldn’t call this a persecution per se because the supplicatio demands a ritual performance from all Romans, and it’s a traditional ritual where you are supposed to have a sacrifice that supplicates the gods on behalf of the state, and it’s done in times of emergency. He does mandate, however, that you need a receipt. So everyone is supposed to go to the local authority, burn some incense or, you know, pour a libation that will show that you’ve performed the proper act of supplication.

John Dickson:
We’ve found a couple of these receipts too, haven’t we in the Oxyrhynchus papyri?

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
Yes, there are a number of libelee, um, papyrus sheets that record so and so did this on such and such a date. And,

John Dickson:
And I witnessed it, and second witness, and it’s pretty serious stuff.

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
In great Roman legal legal practice.

John Dickson – Studio:

A ‘supplicatio’, by the way, was a public prayer or thanksgiving to the Roman gods. It’s where we get the term supplication. And, yes! This is the same Oxyrhynchus collection from which the ‘First Hymn’ comes! As I’ve said before, the Oxyrhynchus collection is the most significant ancient literary find in the history of archaeology, due to the sheer breadth of insight it’s given us about the everyday lives of those in Roman Egypt. Quite a number of these supplicatio receipts have been discovered from the time of Emperor Decius – bits of them, anyway. They’re also called a ‘libellus’ – a type of certificate that declared participation in a sacrifice to the gods. Here’s one of them that was found in Oxyrhynchus, which is dated around AD 250. 

Reading

“To those chosen to be over the sacrifices of the Oxyrhynchites’ city, from Aurelius Gaion, son of Ammonius, his mother being Taeus. Always, of course, to sacrifice and pour the libation and revere the gods, having been my custom, in accordance with what was ordered by the divine judgement, now too, in front of you, I am sacrificing and pouring the libation. I have tasted of the offerings, along with Taos, my wife, and Ammonius and Ammonianus, my sons, and daughter Thecla. And I ask you to certify this for me below. Year 1 of the Imperator Caesar Gaius Messius Quintus Traianus Decius Pius Felix Augustus. I, Aurelius Gaion, have handed it in. I, Aurelius Sarapion who is also known as Chaeremon wrote for him, due to his not knowing letters.”

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
Yeah. So, you know, many people did this, but there were certainly a number of conscientious objectors, and the ones we know about were Christian. I wouldn’t assume that all of the people who objected were Christian. I, there could well have been others.

John Dickson:
Well, parenthetically,  Jews were, didn’t have to do this.

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
No. Jews were excused. 

John Dickson:
Can you explain to my audience why?

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
Well, Jews traditionally had had special dispensation. They they were obliged to pray for the emperor on on on Rome’s pray for the emperor’s wellbeing. But from the time that Judea came into the Empire, um, during the time of Pompy and Caesar in order to sort of make that a smooth process, um, those two figures guaranteed Jews the right of religious tolerance. Romans didn’t particularly like Judaism. And now, and then, Jews got in trouble, certainly during the first Jewish war and other skirmishes in the second century. But they had official tolerance. And so they would not have been, they would not have been subject to this particular edict in, in the early 250s.

John Dickson – Studio:

Emperor Decius’ edict requiring inhabitants of the Roman Empire to sacrifice to the gods is the first empire-wide persecution of Christians. Up until Decius, persecution had been localised and ad hoc. This was different. It’s ‘pursuing Christians with hostile intent’ on an imperial scale. Those who refused to sacrifice were imprisoned, tortured, or killed. In 251, Emperor Decius dies in battle and the demand for sacrifices to the Roman gods ends. But two years later, Emperor Valerian comes to power and renews the Christian persecution with vigour. 

John Dickson:
And is Valerian just carrying on the Desius persecution?

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
Would that that we knew. So, so our source for most of this is Eusebius church history. Which is written early in the fourth century from his post in Caesarea where he had a great library and a lot of documentation. It’s very clear what Desius was doing. It’s much less clear what Valerian was doing. Valerian comes into, uh, into power in few years after Desius. So it’s not clear whether he is continuing it or he’s starting something new. Eusebius says that he, uh, Valerian was encouraged to persecute because of the machinations of this kind of priest, a pagan priest that he was working with. So, Eusebius seems to make a distinction between the two.

John Dickson:
He lists a lot of names, of individuals who were executed. Not, not all of them great bishops or anything like that.  But some of them just lowly Christians. And he, but he has names. Do you take that seriously? I mean, do you think he’s got documentation there in Ceasarea?

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
I think that for, um, for the eastern part of the empire and anything that’s on a document that Eusebius has, I think he’s fairly reliable. He does, however, like to chop up his documents, and so in the places where he interjects his own point of view, I don’t know if I would trust him a hundred per cent there. He’s almost totally ignorant about events in the West. And he’s totally reliant on just a handful of things that he’s got in his library.

John Dickson:
Just a note for the producer who’s now listening to this recording we, we will read that section from Eusebius where he lists all the names. Yeah. Good. It’s quite compelling.

Reading

In his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius lists the following martyred bishops and priests:

At Nicomedia:

Anthimos, the bishop of Nicomedia, is beheaded

Loukianos, a presbyter of Antioch, offers a brave confession and is martyred.

In Phoenicia:
Tyrannion, bishop of Tyre
Zenobios, presbyter of Sidon
Silvanos, bishop of Emesa, with others.

In Antioch:
The bishop of Antioch is thrown to the sea
Zenobios, a physician, is tortured and martyred.

In Palestine:
Silvanos, bishop of Gaza, is beheaded with 39 others at the copper mines of Phaeno.
Peleus and Neilos, Egyptian bishops and companions, are burnt at the same mines.

The presbyter Pamphilos, pride of the church of Caesarea, is martyred.

Eusebius states that he will write about him separately.

In Alexandria and Egypt:
Petros, bishop of Alexandria, with the presbyters Phaustos, Dios and Ammonios.
Phileas, Hesychios, Pachymios and Theodoros, bishops …

John Dickson – Studio:

It goes on and on. Not just bishops but common lay Christians were also killed. The Decius and Valerian persecutions lasted on and off for about ten years. After Valerian was killed in 260, his successor cancelled the orders against Christians. Believers could once again own property, meet openly, and serve in public roles. Christians carried on their lives and mission … though perhaps nervously … worried about what might come next. What came next was their worst nightmare. It’s not called The Great Persecution for nothing. That’s after the break. 

Break 1

John Dickson:
Can you set the context for the Roman Empire in the crazy two hundreds AD because lots of things have happened that are very different from the Augustine period. Citizenship, the breaking up of the territories and so on. Can you tell us what we need to know about the two hundreds?

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
Yeah, it’s a time of real contrasts. So on the one hand, in early in the century, you have an effort by the Severian dynasty. So Septimius Severus and his descendants, they’re jurists, their legal scholars made an effort to produce some legal uniformity in the, um, empire. So making everybody citizens at 218, after the Emperor Caracalla … They also employed these really talented jurists guys like Ian and Papin, who help them collect edicts from all over the empire, pull them back to Rome, produce legal textbooks. Standardize everything, send it back out to the provinces so that this was the first time  that everybody had been under the same system of law. So…

John Dickson:
And this was because Caracalla made everyone, citizens Yes. Allowed everyone to be citizens.

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
Yes. So every, so there’s a real push to uniformity. And in the Roman world the emperor is also Pontifex Maximus, and so is responsible for the correct exercise of religion. So in this legal uniformity and political uniformity, there’s the expectation of course, of religious uniformity.

John Dickson – Studio:

In the preamble to his famous edict, Caracalla thanks the immortal gods for saving him from danger. He declares that it is an act of piety to lead foreigners into the temples of the Roman gods. And then he announces that all free inhabitants of the empire are henceforth Roman citizens, to be included in this divinely established empire. Details of the decree in the show notes.

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
In the the third century as well, in the two hundreds as well, if you look in the world of thought, you have a similar kind of impulse with, uh, philosophers like Plaus. Um, trying to get his students to, um, use the teachings of Plato to help them ascend through contemplation and aestheticism

John Dickson:
This is Neo Platonism.

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
Yes, this is Neo Platonism

John Dickson:
Can you give me the 30-second primer so I don’t have to do it later?

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
These guys were steeped in Plato, but also what they thought Pythagoras had taught, so way, way, much, much earlier than they are teaching. Essentially thinking that it’s the job of the philosopher to make contact with the divine, with the one transcendent being, as Plato thought also, um, uh, in the republic when he advocates the philosopher should leave the cave and see, see the truth. And then they also thought that, um, a philosopher who had experienced the one, had the responsibility to come back into the world and advise the sovereign on, um, correct doctrine and practice. And they were what you might call pagan monotheists in the sense that they didn’t discount traditional religion. They thought that was a path to truth, but they also thought that they had the secret key as the educated elite, well-trained to understand, you know, how to make this kind of contact. And so there was a wide range of, um, of opinions within it, but you could see a sort of similar impulse to the legal impulse.

John Dickson:
A kind of unifying theory.

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
Exactly right. So, so making one thing out of many things. 

John Dickson – Studio:

Neo-Platonism emerged about 500 years after Plato himself. It’s often thought of as the pinnacle of the classical philosophical tradition, a grand synthesis of the greatest ideas of the Greek tradition. This philosophical unification tracks with the other efforts towards uniformity within the 3rd-century Greco-Roman world. The Roman empire is moving towards a standardised legal system, citizenship for all, a unified philosophy, and one Emperor, who also held the title ‘Pontifex Maximus’ – the supreme priest of Roman religion. 

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
But at the same time, you have you have some real social upheavals. So during the reign of Marcus Aurelius and then several decades later, two pandemic diseases sweep across the Mediterranean world, um, one seems to have been something like smallpox. The other seems to have been something like Ebola and

John Dickson:
They call this the Cyprian pandemic.

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
The Cyprian Plague.

John Dickson:
That doesn’t mean that he started it.

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
Yes. No, I Know. Nor did he die of it, but, um, but it was during his lifetime.

John Dickson – Studio:

Just quickly, Cyprian was the bishop of Carthage in the mid-200s (he was executed under our friend emperor Valerian). His treatise, On Mortality gives us one of the best surviving descriptions of the plague that severely weakened the Roman Empire in this period. Today it’s called ‘The Plague of Cyprian’. I’m not sure Cyprian would be happy they named a plague after him … but there you go … 

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
And so, so we know from COVID, which had probably as devastating as it was, nothing like the impact of these diseases, we can appreciate maybe the kind of social upheaval that that would’ve caused taking its toll on people growing food for the empire, um, making the fortifications more vulnerable as people succumb to disease. And, uh, so it’s probably no, uh, wonder that by mid-century, you have a number of different peoples penetrating into the empire and wreaking havoc on the frontier. Germans along the Rhine and the Danube, and then a newly ascendant Persia in the east. The system of emperors and their succession was ill-equipped to deal with this.

John Dickson:
20 in 20 years. Are we right?

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
Exactly. So you have, you know, uh, usurpations and civil wars at the same time. So it’s a, it’s a, it’s kind of amazing that the empire didn’t completely disintegrate in this period.

John Dickson – Studio:

This era of turmoil, from 235 to 284, is known as the Crisis of the Third Century. By the early 200s, the empire stretched from North Africa through Europe and deep into the Middle East. With endless frontier raids and a vast population to govern, it was almost unmanageable even in good times. Add plague, invasions, and the crushing costs of the army, and the system was near collapse. When Severus Alexander was murdered by his own troops in 235, chaos followed. In the next 50 years Rome cycled through about 20 emperors—whereas they’d only seen about 25 emperors in the previous 250 years. It was a mess. Not until Diocletian in 284 did stability begin to return.

John Dickson:
This sort of brings us up to the great reforming emperor Diocletian. How did he try and take Rome by the throat and reorganize it?

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
So, he came into power after a couple of emperors had started to gain control of the frontiers. So, Aurelian in 270 had managed to reintegrate the empire. And by the time Diocletian seizes the throne really in 284, Persia has more or less been subdued and the Germans are more or less quiescent. But he’s kind of takes his cue from the divided emperor empire of the mid-century and realizes that an imperial presence needs to be extended throughout the empire in a way that one emperor could no longer do. And so he divides the Mediterranean world into four quadrants. And over the, the first few years of his reign, he sets one man in each quadrant. He shares supreme power with his friend Maxsimian – gives Maxsimian the West. Diocletian takes the East. And then each of them takes a junior subordinate. Um, uh, Maximian divides the West with Constantius and, Diocletian divides the East with Galerius.

John Dickson:
And it’s weird for people who don’t know this history to think that junior one is called Caesar when, when we all sort of grew up thinking Caesar is like, yes. That’s the ultimate. That’s right. So you’ve got an Augustus yes. Eastern West. Yeah. And a Caesar, East and West. What was it really just as simple as, uh, the empire was too big? Uh, that’s why you needed sort of four leaders over it, or was there something else going on?

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
Well,  in these days, it was really important. The position of Emperor itself is you know, we think of this, this role as all supreme and, and people naturally obeying. And yet if you’ve come out of a period where you have 20 emperors and, you know, 30 years, according power and authority to this in individual isn’t necessarily a given. So it was really important for the troops to have the imperial presence along the frontier. And there was still action enough at the frontier that having somebody that represented imperial authority there was important for not just making sure that there was order, but also being able to have the authority to command the troops, uh, to, to gather resources for taxation, to establish the relationships within the provinces that would make sure that the army was well supplied, but also to do, to have the kind of interactions with provincials that would then over time solidify imperial control again. And that would mean things like refurbishing roads or, um, building warehouses, um, the kinds of day-to-day things that people in the provinces hadn’t had from the emperors for such a long time.

John Dickson:
And Diocletian really does bring a kind of stability, cause you go from 20 emperors in 20 years to a 20 year reign.

John Dickson – Studio:

So Emperor Diocletian brought stability back to the Roman Empire. But he also instigated the cruellest and most systematic persecution of Christians ever in the ancient world. Christianity was growing in the Empire, and Christians were rising up the ranks of power: in Roman politics, in the academy, and in the army. But the big thinkers of the day – the neo-platonists that we heard about earlier – weren’t happy with the ‘infiltration’ of Christians and their ideas into Roman society. Something had to be done!!

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
At the same time, you’re having what I would say is a reaction on the part of these neo platonists who do not think that this is the right way to the one who feel threatened by this, um, this movement that seems to be, um, you know, to cross social boundaries, to, um, be blasphemous to maybe even be polluting and harmful to the city. And, um, these philosophers who are charged right with advising the sovereign, um, manage to finagle their way into influence at, um, Diocletian’s court, probably through his Caesar, uh, Gallius and, uh, and through some oracular priests and, and making an oppression on the emperor that way. And, um, so, you know, as we know today, it’s not uncommon for a group once marginalized that comes into, you know, sort of social acceptability to disturb and disrupt the people who had been the brokers of power before and to, to trigger a backlash. Mm-hmm. Right? And so I think that that’s what is happening in the court of Diocletian as these philosophers, you know, who are, who are elite, who have traditionally been, um, the, the great thinkers of, of the empire when they start to be troubled, you know, an emperor’s going to listen.

John Dickson – Studio:

The greatest philosopher of this time was Porphyry. He wrote two works: Against the Christians (not super subtle) and another one called Philosophy from Oracles. 

Reading

How can these Christians be thought worthy of forbearance? They have not only turned away from those who from earliest time are referred to as divine among all Greeks and barbarians … and by emperors, law-givers and philosophers- all of a common mind. But also, in choosing impieties and atheism, they have preferred their fellow creatures. And to what sort of penalties might they not justly be subjected – these people who … are fugitives from the traditions of their fathers?

John Dickson – Studio:

Pressure was growing on Christians, and by the year 303, things reached a boiling point.

John Dickson:
And then in February 303 Diocletian makes a decree. Well, several decrees over, over several months. Right. Can you tell us what those decrees were?

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
Yeah. So, the decree is a cluster of things. Number one, all Christians lose their status. So, remember everybody was now a citizen. Well, not if you were a Christian. If you had senatorial status, you were now of the status of the most ordinary person subject to capital punishment. If you were an imperial freed person, you became enslaved again. So all of the rights and privileges that would’ve accorded a citizen of any standing was lost to you. So it’s, I mean, in a modern analogy would be that you became undocumented. Right? In one fell swoop. The second provision of the edict was that Christian places of assembly were to be demolished. Uh, Christian scripture was to be burned.

John Dickson:
That’s an interesting one. They’d worked out that those scriptures were part of the problem. Right? They’ve got books, let’s get rid of their books. I thought that was Christians who invented that?!

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
No, they came later. So those were the, that was the primary thrust of the first edict. After that, then, later on they they apprehended bishops and other leaders of the clergy. And then they tried to institute universal sacrifice. And those were the, the primary provisions of the, of the edicts.

John Dickson:
So I’m interested. I’ve never really known how did they manage this? Were there police, you know, going door to door? I mean, we actually have some echoes of transcripts of people going door, door to door. But how do they, how do they manage it? I mean, did everyone have to come down on a certain day and do a sacrifice? Were you, was your name on a roll and you got ticked off? I’m just trying to understand …

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
So it would’ve been, you don’t have to tell totalitarian government in the Roman Empire. It, it would’ve been very, sort of like a network of things. So we know in great detail what happened in Nicomedia, for example, where the emperor was, Lactantius in fact tells us. So Hieroclese and his men went out and went to the church, which everybody could see on the hill, uh, with his troops and accountants. They break down the doors, they enter the sanctuary, they take out the, all the treasure, they box it up. There’s an accountant keeping tabs of how much it is as they box it up, they take all of the documents, they make a bonfire, and then they demolish the building.

John Dickson:
 We actually have a transcript from one of these interviews in Kirta in North Africa. 

John Dickson – Studio:

The transcript is dated to within months of the first edict: 19 May 303. The Roman guardian of the city, the “permanent priest and curator,” was Munatius Felix. He was tasked with investigating church leaders and property in the region. In the record, he interviews several church leaders, including Paul the bishop and various others, deacons and readers.  He is particularly interested in “codices,” the books of Christian Scripture, which were to be destroyed. Two deacons, Marcuclius and Catullinus, refuse to play along. They hand over just one book and advise that the other books are with various members of the church, elsewhere in the city. Felix is not impressed. The official transcript records:

Reading

Felix the permanent priest and curator said . . . : “Why have you given only one codex?” Catullinus and Marcuclius said: “We have no more, as we are subdeacons; but the readers have the codices.” Felix said: “Show me the readers!” Marcuclius and Catullinus said: “We don’t know where they live”. Felix said to Catullinus and Marcuclius: “If you do not know where they live, tell their names.” Catullinus and Marcuclius said: “We are not traitors. Here we are, have us killed.” Felix said: “Let them be taken iMnto custody.” 

The Acts of Munatius Felix 

John Dickson – Studio:

That is the last we hear of brave Catullinus and Marcuclius. It was probably the last anyone heard of them.

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
So, so how it’s enforced at that, that aspect depends on the willingness of the emperor of the region and the, the, um, Pretorian prefect and the military to accomplish it. So the people in the east were pretty zealous and, and in the cities in the east, it’s very clear that this happened –

John Dickson:
And there are more Christians there in the east too right?

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser:
But even in Constantius’ domains in the northwest it’s quite likely that, and well we know that from Lactantius as well, that he demolished churches. And so that means that he probably sent the Preitorian prefect, say, to the city of Leon or the city of Oton to do something very similar. In terms of the, we, we don’t have ‘libelle’ for this as we do for Desius’ persecution. What we do know is that other Romans could take advantage of the Christians diminished standing to to lay claim to their property. Or to bring them into a court of law. And these Christians who were attacked uh, through the, the judicial process that way would’ve had no recourse. They also would’ve been obliged to to sacrifice in front of the, the emperor. And so they may or may not have chosen to, to do that. But we don’t, we don’t know of authorities going door to door in this. You also have, and we know this from Eusebius, you also have people who kind of throw themselves at the Roman authorities which they were not supposed to do, but, but, but did anyway, um, there’s a very famous example of somebody who did exactly this when the edict approach persecution was being posted into Nicomedia, and he tears it down in front of everybody and he says, oh, it’s just a, it’s just a, a notice about the defeating of some Goths and Sarmations. And he’s apprehended and executed and burned at the stake.

John Dickson:
Yikes. 

John Dickson – Studio:

Yikes indeed! If you’re keeping score, the edicts of Emperor Diocletian are as follows: Churches demolished. Scriptures destroyed. Christians are forbidden to assemble. Freed slaves who are Christians were re-enslaved. Believers in elite society, including those in academic posts, were to lose their positions and social rank. When this didn’t seem to work, a law mandated that every citizen should participate in sacrifices to the traditional Greek and Roman gods. Anyone who refused, as Christians believed they must, was to be tortured until they relented, or else they were executed. Interestingly, Diocletian abdicated in 305, and Galerius took over, continuing the persecution for another six years. But then, Galerius gets sick and, on his deathbed, issues a Decree of Toleration 311. It’s not exactly religious freedom. But it’s an ‘everyone back to your corners’ type of call. He even asks Christians to pray for his health. He must have been desperate. I don’t know if Christians did pray for him — I like to think they did — but he died just months later … and, you guessed it, his successor, Maximinus Daia, had no qualms continuing the persecution in the east. The years 303-312 were very difficult years for Christians. It’s why historians still call it the ‘Great Persecution’. But at the end of the year 312, it all suddenly ended. This is when Emperor Constantine came to power and, to everyone’s amazement, converted to the Christian faith. The Emperor of Rome was suddenly a Christian. You’ll have to listen to our full episode on Constantine if you want to hear more about that (it’s episode 61, ‘Emperor Constantine’, with Alanna Nobbs and Doug Lee). It’s one of my favourites. There is so much to undeceive concerning Constantine! The conversion of Constantine gave the church its first taste of privilege, setting the stage centuries later for the vast global superpower known as “Christendom”, the domain of Christ. Now, this point can sometimes be exaggerated. It was Emperor Theodosius in the 390s (not Constantine back in the 330s) who outlawed pagan religion and permitted only Christianity (and Judaism, by the way). We really should do an episode on Theodosius. He was a mass of contradictions. A great guy, and a bully! And even Theodosius can’t be blamed for Christendom. Remember, the Roman Empire of the West collapsed a century after Theodosius, and there wasn’t anyone to impose Christian rule on the lands of Europe until Charlemagne around the year 800. That’s really when you have Christendom. And Charlemagne absolutely positively deserves an episode. Anyway, back to my point …  In the West, today, the vestiges of Christendom—the political rule of Christ—are still evident. And some Christians in the West can feel quite uncomfortable watching those privileges they’ve had for about a thousand years eroded by waves of secularism. They sometimes cry ‘persecution’, when it’s just a balancing of privileges. But here’s the thing. The privileges of the Western church—land, wealth, tax breaks, access to government, and so on—make it really difficult to talk about the genuine persecution of Christians, which really is happening in some places. The church’s reputation in the West as powerful makes it difficult for some to imagine that a number of Christians today live in precarious circumstances. After the break, persecution — real persecution — today. 

Break 2

Haroon:
Suddenly I felt like somebody grabbed my arm and says, ‘My son, leave your home right now’. You can imagine if he have a one or two minute to leave home, what you can take with you. So I ran away from my home. That was one of the hardest night in my life, um, leaving my everything behind. And devil was showing me back and he said, look back. Your son, your wife, your, um, mom, dad, brother, sister, your title, uh, your Honor.

John Dickson – Studio:

That’s Haroon, talking with Director Mark from Germany. Haroon isn’t his real name. It’s too dangerous to reveal his identity even now, living thousands of miles away from home. 

Haroon:
I grew up in Pakistan in very radical Sunni Muslim family. My grandfather, my father, they were Imam in Pakistan. My, my older sister, she had a master in Islam, uh, Islamic education, and she was also a teacher in Islamic school in Pakistan for women. And I was very committed, uh, from childhood. When my, my family, they send, uh, send me into Islamic school, which is very famous, um, uh, Islamic school in Pakistan and they take, uh, kids after fifth grade, uh, at least fifth grade they have to have and I went to that Islamic school for to memorize Quran. Uh, they was, uh, they was very proud in my whole tribe. Um, like there was honored in my tribe as well, um, that our son is going to become a imam and he’s becoming Hafiz, like the person who will memorize Quran. So I was, uh, as I was faithful to my calling in Islam, and my, my principal, uh, my leader, he decided to send me to Europe in 2005 in Greece, Athens, for continuing, uh, Islamic mission and spreading Islam in Europe.

John Dickson – Studio:

Haroon was sent to Greece to help plant a mosque in Athens. To be able to stay in Greece, Haroon had to get a job to support himself and find a place to live. He found a job working for a Christian couple, who also offered him a place to live. Haroon had been taught to hate Christians. But the couple he lived with were kind to him. The difference between what he’d been taught and what he saw in front of him caused him to doubt lots of what he’d heard about Christians and about Christianity. If you’re a PLUS subscriber, you’re about to get the full story. If not — no judgment, no worries — we’ll pick up at the point related to our topic. Haroon eventually gave up his mosque duties in Athens, turned away from Islam itself, and embraced Christ as true Lord. Amazingly, he then decided to go back to Pakistan. 

Haroon:
It was so difficult for me to, to tell my family or any friend that I, I am, I’m a follower of Jesus. I went back to Pakistan after resigning my ministry, I said, I wanna back to Pakistan. Some other Imam came and they took over and that mask still going on. Uh, and I went back to Pakistan and my father say, okay, welcome back home. I have a mask and you can be Imam. And I became a Imam in Pakistan, leading hundreds of people, um, every five time a day. Um, and then lead leading Friday prayer, one of the biggest prayer in a week. Then my father, he has arranged marriage for me. I could not say no to him. Still nobody know that I am, um, follower of Jesus. But, I went to a church in Pakistan, uh, and I talked to pastor there. And this pastor knew me that how radical I was and I am, and how, um, how much difficult I create for Christian people. And I said, ‘This is a dream I have about Jesus, and uh, I need Bible. What can I do now’? And he said, ‘Imam, thank you for having dream, but please don’t come to our church because if anybody knew that you start coming to our church and you became Christian, they will kill all of us. So please don’t come to our church.’

John Dickson – Studio:

Christians are less than 2 per cent of Pakistan’s population, mostly poor, low-caste Hindu converts. Converting from Islam is possible, but dangerous. Pakistan has some of the world’s toughest blasphemy laws — insult the Prophet and you risk prison, or worse. Many accused never make it to trial … they’re cut down by mobs. When Haroon left Islam, the danger was immediate — for him and those near him. He couldn’t risk attending an official public church. Instead, he slipped quietly into an underground fellowship of Muslim-background believers.

Haroon:
Sometime we open Quran talk about Jesus, and people can see that we are talking about Quran and Haddi and Moham, but we, we talk about Jesus. But long story short is my family, they found me in my church after some month. They took me home with my followers and, and they start asking question, okay, you believe that Jesus, son of God and he’s God. I said, ‘I don’t know he’s God or not, but I know one thing. I was sinner and he’s my savior’. And then after that, everybody start beating me. There was like around 20 to 25 people. And this is a first wound in my life is here. And here, uh, they broke my both arms, both legs, both, um, multiple ribs was broken. And I still remember that they throw me in, in a gutter, um, in the mud where the water come from toilet. And some people, they open my mouth and they pee in my mouth that I say that Jesus is my God and my savior. Some people they took me, uh, to hospital, uh, was very hard, uh, in Pakistan many month I was, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t, um, go anywhere. And some Christian people in Pakistan, they took big risk and they took me to their home and I was thrown out of my home with broken legs and arm and ribs. And then some month later, my friend, he called me and he said, ‘Haroon, come back your home. You have son’. God gave me a son. So I went back to my home. I was healed. After few months, um, uh, I was healed and I went back to my home to see my son. Nobody loved me, but I love to see my son. It was 27 of Ramadan, 2011. I was driving car in the Cityside. And one young man, he came to my car and he stopped my car. It was the middle of city, like I mean Pakistan is crowded everywhere. And he stopped my car and he came out. I came out and he was just two meter far from me. And he had AK 47 Klashnikov. He had with a, like a jihadist uniform. And he start shouting on me and hundreds of people stopped there and start watching and he  start cursing on me. He’s a murat, he’s infe, he’s, um, this and that. So after. He says many things. And after he start shouting Allah, he said, your punishment is dead. Um, your punishment beheaded. So he said, Allah, and I closed my eyes. I said, ‘It is done’. And I don’t know how long it took. A few seconds or few minutes, I was crying and praying and, uh, closed my eyes. And one man from crowd, he came to me and he pushed me. And he said, ‘Man run. Look, his gun is not working. What are you waiting for?’ And I opened my eyes. I saw that he was drawing and his first bull was jamme. AK-47 never stop. During my Jihad training, I used an AK-47 all the time. Never stop, but God stop his gun. I ran away. Four days later while I was sleeping in my home, uh, with my family. So many doubt. Where can I go? What can I do? My best friend, he called me and he said, uh, Haroon, tonight is your last night. I turn off my phone, I start crying and start looking like my son, sleeping wife, my whole family, because we have whole family. We live together. So I said, ‘If he did not kill me other day, maybe they’re already outside, and it, it is done’. Suddenly I felt like somebody grabbed my arm and says, my son, leave your home right now.

John Dickson – Studio:

A local Islamic leader issued a Fatwa against Haroon – calls to shoot him on sight appeared in the local newspaper and on the radio. He fled to Germany, where he was taken in as a refugee. 

Haroon:
Two things happened that changed my life. The first one was the love of Christ that changed my life. That couple in Greece, they was not trying to convert me to Christianity. They was just there to love me. This was their just their call to love me. The love of Christ changed my life. Love of Christ became louder than my five time pray, don’t touch, don’t eat, don’t drink this. Everything. People don’t read Bible. They read your life. They read love of Christ in your life. 

John Dickson: Studio

I hear Haroon’s story, and it’s hard for me to say that any Christian in the West is persecuted. But my final guest says it’s not that simple. 

John Dickson:
Have you got a definition of persecution for us?

Adam Holland:
We do, we have one as open doors that, um, you have to start somewhere. You have to define, so as parameters. So the way our research is conducted and, and over time, 70 years for the ministry, that definition we’ve settled on is any hostility experienced as a result of one’s identification with Christ. So, the hostility that you experienced. As a result of following Jesus.

John Dickson: Studio

Adam Holland is the CEO of Open Doors Australia, an organisation dedicated to serving and strengthening the persecuted Church around the world. They do that by providing training, distributing Bibles and literature in tricky places, offering emergency relief and medical aid where it might be otherwise hard for Christians to get it, and raising awareness of Christian persecution in parts of the world that don’t often hear about it. Honestly, Open Doors is amazing! 

John Dickson:
So, are we persecuted in the west, in Australia, in the United States?

Adam Holland:
 I think that there’s forms of persecution, a lot of our research we categorize and squeeze a smash. So smash is violent acts of persecution, squeeze are those categories that are more subtle and, and often nuanced. Social pressure, cultural, workplace, even legislative. I think there’s an argument that, um, in the west there’s an increase and forms particularly of squeeze persecution.

John Dickson:
Give me an example of what you, you would put in that category.

Adam Holland:
I think there’s a few. I mean, in Australia, I think where there has typically been the, the connection between a lot of legislative frameworks and Judeo-Christian frameworks. It’s unsettling for many Christians as some of that shifts and starts to pull apart.  I, I’m sure you’ve read, I, I’ve heard you reference the book, uh, Dominion by Tom, Tom Holland. Fascinating book. I mean, I think that’s starts to unpack some of where the power structure being directly connected to the church creates a certain experience of cultural institutions, legislation, even how government operates. And so as that sort of diminishes or unpicks a little bit, I think forms of squeeze persecution where it can feel hostile as a Christian, that there are moments that it feels like that is hostile to the belief I have specifically because I’m a Christian.

John Dickson:
Some would see that as just the winding back of, um, centuries of privilege, not in any sense unfair, uh, mistreatment.

Adam Holland:
I think there’s times that persecution may be too strong a phrase, but I think there are times that it is persecution because, um, it’s, it’s hostile towards what is specifically true and following Jesus what we believe, what we stand for, what we communicate, how we share the gospel.

John Dickson:
Tell me about smash persecution. What, what, where would you, um. Help my listers listeners think of, you know, the top forms of smash going on in the world today.

Adam Holland:
Yeah, I mean it’s, it’s sheer violence, John. So, uh, in Sub-Saharan Africa, that’s where we see the greatest increase. So the number of identified deaths. So again, there’s a of conflict often happening, but the research for the world watch this and Open Doors identifies was the cause of that violence because someone was a Christian, not because wrong place, wrong time. So thousands of deaths in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Nigeria, and it’s a vindictive, intense hostility towards Christians where there’s no rule of law.So that smash persecution in its most extreme form is violence and, and a form of murder and death. But burning down a church, burning down someone’s home, forcibly removing, um, children from a family, uh, those are all forms of smash.

John Dickson:
And where is this happening most in the world right now?

Adam Holland:
Nigeria’s the most, um, intense, I think where there’s been particularly Christian, um, regions that for generations have been, um, but really the whole region, so in North Africa, that’s had forms of violent persecution for, for some period of time, but it’s basically extending south, so into places like Burkina Faso, Nigeria, even parts of Kenya. So in the World Watch List, which identifies the top 50, um, that’s where we see the, the highest increase in smash persecution in that Sub-Saharan region.

John Dickson: Studio

The World Watch List is Open Door’s annual ranking of the 50 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution. It’s been published now for 33 years. In 2025, the countries where Christians faced the most difficulties were, from 10 to number 1: 

10. Afghanistan
    9. Iran
    8. Pakistan
    7. Nigeria
    6. Eritrea
    5. Sudan
    4. Libya
    3. Yemen
    2. Somalia

And, at the top of the list: 1. North Korea

John Dickson:
Sometimes people who don’t believe accuse Christians in the West – I’m, I’m in the west for this part of our conversation – accuse Christians of having a persecution complex. Ah, you think the whole world’s out to get you? Do you, do you see that or, um, or, or is that just a legitimate response to the winding back of, um, Christianity and culture?

Adam Holland:
I think, I think the reality is. It’s not, it’s going one way. I think it’s unlikely that our cultural institutions, our legislative frameworks, the way that we operate in a democratic society is going to become more and more integrated with Christian beliefs – that framework of viewing the world – and it can create a complex that is hypersensitive to what feels like persecution. I think that the challenges, if you look at a spectrum or a continuum of the reality of persecution … I don’t think anyone in the US would say we’re persecuted as North Koreans are persecuted or things on the much further end of the spectrum, but that doesn’t preclude it being absolutely true. Um, I mean, open doors has, we, we choose to tread carefully that, um, our focus is on the most persecuted. Invariably questions come up around ‘well, what does that mean here for me in the West’? And, uh, you know, it’s a question I ask myself. Does, does persecution play a role in my own discipleship to Jesus? I would say I’ve been ridiculed. I would say that I’ve had, I think we both, uh, were at Macquarie Uni. I can remember finishing my honest thesis and philosophy and feeling like ‘I think I got marked down because I built theology into it’. Or maybe it was because my arguments weren’t as good as they should have been. But is that persecution? I, you know, it’s not hostile, but it’s ridiculing. So the complex … I think the complex can stem from becoming hypersensitive to what is very light pressures of squeeze persecution. 

John Dickson: Studio

We’ve called this episode “Persecution complex”-for two reasons. Partly because the issue of persecution is ‘complex’, but also because Christians are sometimes accused of having a ‘persecution complex’ – thinking the whole world’s out to get them. Back in 2017, the organisation International Christian Concern included the United States in its religious freedom Hall of Shame. The list was meant to highlight twelve countries where Christians face persecution. The United States was in a list with countries like North Korea, Nigeria, Pakistan, and China. Sounds implausible, but here’s part of the report: 

Reading

Throughout the US, current events and shifting perceptions are causing conflicts between Christian beliefs and public sentiment. This cultural shift affects Christian businesses, organisations, and individuals through legal action, free speech infringement, public expressions of faith, and employment. While there is no comparison between the life of a Christian in the US with persecuted believers overseas, ICC sees these worrying trends as an alarming indication of a decline in religious liberty in the United States.

John Dickson: Studio

No comparison, indeed. But I find the perception of persecution really interesting. And it’s pretty widespread. Around the same time, Barna Research released a study that suggested 52% of American Christians felt persecuted because of their faith. Many others used terms like “marginalised” (44%), “sidelined (40%), “silenced (38%), “afraid to speak up” (31%) and “afraid to look stupid” (23%). This is one of the problems with making an episode about persecution when no official definition of persecution exists. What I think amounts to persecution and what you think amounts to persecution might be quite different. I proposed a definition at the top of the episode: 

Christian persecution is sustained or decisive action by those with the power to cause harm, aimed at injuring Christians legally, physically, or socially because of their identity or practices.

I honestly think being made to feel stupid doesn’t count. Either way, how are Christians meant to respond?

John Dickson:
What’s the right response for a Christian faced with genuine persecution?

Adam Holland:
I mean, I wrestle with this because you spend time with persecuted Christians who are in that extreme end of the spectrum. They’ve experienced smash, real trauma, or forms of squeeze and. And they tend to be joyful, John. I mean, they tend to, it’s not necessarily dower and just sackcloth and ashes. It’s, um, we love our country. God’s at work and our life. They wanna share the gospel.  it’s also a response of, of prayer to not return evil, for evil, um, to, to pray for our persecutor. That’s what often persecuted Christians will share.

John Dickson:
Open Doors focuses on strengthening the persecuted church, um, that’s sort of in your mission statement. Um, why the focus on strengthening rather than say stopping persecution?

Adam Holland:
I guess the deeper answer is we recognize that as long as the kingdom of God is expanding and the gospel is being shared, um, we’re taught. I mean, Jesus teaches us, um, persecution will be part of that if he was persecuted. We should be expect, we should expect to be persecuted. I’ve spent time with persecuted Christians you may have as well, John, where, um, they, in a way they are thankful for the depth of their discipleship journey that comes from persecution. If that was removed, I mean, I’ve been asked directly sharing with a group of persecuted Christians, ‘What does discipleship look like if you’re not persecuted’? Because that is a foreign concept to them. Now, how confronting for me of. Feeling like my honesty has got a, you know, a reduction in its marks compared to ‘I’ll never own a home, I’ll never have a job’. So that I think our persecuted family have a deeper insight to that. And, you know, they wouldn’t want persecution. That’s the wrong way to put it. The eradication of persecution just, um, doesn’t make sense in a, in a, in a biblical framework, in a gospel sense. And so we seek just to strengthen those who experience persecution.

John Dickson:
Yeah, there’s that wonderful passage in one Peter 4 that talks about  rejoicing that you’re persecuted because you are sharing in the sufferings of Christ. 

Reading

Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.

1 John, Chapter 4

John Dickson:  
I mean.That that’s the thing that, that you see in a persecuted Christian is they feel like they’re more in Christ than an intimacy that comes.

Five Minute Jesus

Let’s press pause, I’ve got a Five Minute Jesus for you. One of the striking things – early Christians thought that their persecution and martyrdom was one of the key reasons Christianity was so successful. In the show notes, we’ll post a table of the seven scholarly estimates for the growth of Christianity in the first 3 centuries. They’re all trying to calculate the number of Christians by the year 300. The highest number is 6 million (Rodney Stark) – that would be 10% of the Roman Empire by the year 300.  The lowest estimate is by Bart Ehrmann, who estimates about 4% of the empire, which puts it at about 2.5 million. I don’t really mind which one — it’s still a HUGE number. I tend to take the average of all 7 scholars. So, 7.3% or 4.4 million by the year 300. That required 30% growth per decade. It’s astonishing. Nothing in antiquity spread like that. There’s a bunch of scholarly work on figuring out why. And not a lot of agreement. I’ve got a PhD in this stuff, I can’t tell you for sure why christianity spread so quickly. But I can tell you what the early Christians thought: they thought Christianity spread because of persecution. Here’s Tertullian, writing in 215: 

Reading

“Our religion however which you know is growing stronger at the very point when it seems to be cut down, will never perish, for whoever beholds such noble endurance as though struck down by some kind of uneasiness will be driven to enquire what is the matter in question? Then, when he knows the truth, immediately follows the same way.” 

Or Lactantius, in 305, right in the middle of The Great Persecution: 

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“There is a reason why God lets persecution come upon us: it increases the number of God’s people, and it is not difficult to show why. Some want to know what that good is which is defended even unto death and which is preferred to all the happy precious things there are in this life. And other people standing by hear us, amidst the tortures, say that we do not sacrifice to stones shaped by human hands but to a living God who is in heaven. Many come to realise this is true and they take it to heart.” Divine Institutes, Book 5

The persecution complex is a lot of grumbling at the mean media outlet that has said nasty things about what we believe. It’s fighting for our ‘rights’, often at the expense of other people’s rights. But Ancient Christians approached persecution with ‘joy’ — joy that they were participating in the way of Christ himself —and they thought it was the key to the growth of Jesus’ message. It was the embodiment of their gospel of Jesus’ death and resurrection. They welcomed the chance to showcase love for enemies, just as God had loved his enemies, entering the world in Christ and dying for us all! Ignatius was the bishop of the churches of Antioch in Syria during the reign of Emperor Trajan in the early 2nd century—we’re like 40 years after the apostle Peter. Ignatius was arrested and ordered to stand trial in Rome for refusing to renounce his Christian faith and sacrifice to Roman idols. He was eventually executed – likely fed to wildcats in the Colosseum. We have seven of his letters that he wrote to Christians in various towns along the way as he travelled to Rome for trial. In one of his letters to the persecuted Christians in Ephesus, he wrote: 

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“Pray continually for the rest of humankind as well, that they may find God, for there is in them hope of repentance. Therefore allow them to be instructed by you, at least by your deeds. In response to their anger, be gentle; in response to their boasts, be humble; in response to their slander, offer prayers; in response to their errors, be steadfast in the faith; in response to their cruelty, be civilised; do not be eager to imitate them. Let us show by our forbearance that we are their brothers and sisters, and let us be eager to be imitators of the Lord.” 

None of this meant ancient Christians were timid. Tertullian, at the dawn of the 200s, wrote to the Governor of Carthage, Scapula, reminding him there were thousands of Christians in the region and they were willing to stage a mass turnout before his court. 

Reading

“What will you make of so many thousands, of such a multitude of men and women, persons of every sex and every age and every rank, when they present themselves before you,” he asks. “How many fires, how many swords will be required? What will be the anguish of Carthage itself, which you will have to decimate?” 

That’s not a shrinking violet. It’s not the voice of someone whose religion is an opiate – dulling him to the social realities of his day. At the front of the letter, Tertullian as good as tells Scapula that he loves him in Christ’s name. But by the end of the letter we learn that Christians were still willing to make a public stand for their faith—even if it cost their lives. Christians believed themselves to be the victors! They believed that true power to change the world lay not in politics, the judiciary, or the military but in the message of Christ’s death and resurrection. They really believed it! And they saw Christ’s story of suffering and glory as the proof and pledge that they were destined for glory no matter what the powerful did to them. This is what made Christians good, even cheerful, losers – the thought that they had already won! Their role was simply to remain true to the way of Christ, seeking to transform the world through just four things: prayer, service, persuasion, and suffering. Prayer for the world that it might know the love of God. Service of all regardless of belief or class. Persuasion about the Christian faith. And suffering with good grace knowing that death is followed by resurrection. You can press PLAY now.  

Undeceptions theme

CREDITS

Undeceptions is hosted by me, John Dickson, produced by Kaley Payne and directed by Mark Hadley. 

Alasdair Belling is a writer and researcher. 

Siobhan McGuiness is our online librarian. 

Lyndie Leviston remains my wonderful assistant. 

Santino Dimarco is Chief Finance and Operations Consultant. 

Editing by Richard Hamwi.

Our voice actor today was Yannick Lawry.

Special thanks to our series sponsor Zondervan for making this Undeception possible. 

Undeceptions is the flagship podcast of Undeceptions.com – letting the truth out.