Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 103 ｜ Christian Persecution

00:00:00.000 Hello, relatable listeners. I hope everyone is having a wonderful week. Happy Wednesday.

00:00:05.360 Today, we are going to get into the Sri Lankan bombing to the tragic incident that happened

00:00:09.800 there over Easter weekend. I won't spend too much time talking about the details. I do want

00:00:15.120 to give you a little bit of a background just for those of you who weren't able to catch what

00:00:20.780 happened on the news. But I really want to spend more time in the analysis of this,

00:00:25.680 what the reactions to the attacks actually mean for where we are as a society and where we are

00:00:34.100 as far as our political environment goes. And then I want to dive into what this means as Christians

00:00:40.480 specifically and what the Bible has to say about Christian persecution. So in case you don't know,

00:00:46.160 this past Easter weekend, suicide bombers detonated bombs at several churches in Sri Lanka, killing

00:00:54.500 321 people and wounded another 500 people. This happened at several Roman Catholic churches

00:00:59.960 and three hotels. The Wall Street Journal reported that St. Sebastian Church appeared to have suffered

00:01:05.700 the worst of this attack. More than 100 of its congregants were killed. The tourism minister

00:01:11.800 said that at least 39 foreigners were among the dead. That includes United States citizens.

00:01:17.440 There was a pretty little known radical Islamist group called the National Tawheeth Jamaat

00:01:23.260 that was blamed for this. Officials of the group had not actually carried out any serious attacks in

00:01:29.420 the past. So this was a little bit of a surprise, though they did seem to have received help from an

00:01:35.780 international terrorist organization. I'm not sure if that organization has been specified. Now here's

00:01:41.540 an interesting part. According to the New York Times, Sri Lanka's security forces were warned about this

00:01:47.100 at least 10 days before the bombings, but they didn't actually do anything. They took no action.

00:01:54.060 There is a reason for that. Well, one of the reasons for that, there's probably a couple

00:01:57.760 and probably a few more that I'm not actually privy to. But one of the reasons for that is because there

00:02:02.640 are no religious protections for religious minorities in Sri Lanka. There are protections for

00:02:09.700 Buddhists. It's a majority Buddhist country. There are not protections for Christians. There are also not 1.00

00:02:14.700 protections for Muslims, at least not written into the laws in Sri Lanka. And so I'm just not sure

00:02:20.640 if these kinds of attacks are necessarily taken seriously when they are against a group like

00:02:26.580 Christians. Now, here's another complex part of this is that the prime minister said that he had

00:02:33.540 no idea about the security threats that he nor his cabinet were informed of this. There was this lack

00:02:40.060 of communication between the prime minister and between the president. There has been a feud for

00:02:45.400 a long time between the president and between the prime minister. Last year, they had a rift between

00:02:51.720 them. They had this kind of tussle about who was the real, the rightful prime minister. And so this kind of

00:02:58.040 conflict that has been going on in their government has lasted a while and has caused in at least some

00:03:04.840 part this kind of security failure that resulted in the loss of hundreds of lives. According to the

00:03:12.060 security memo on April 11th, the government had intelligence that did highlight the warnings on the

00:03:18.060 Catholic Church bombings. There is another article in the New York Times that says, quote, they had been

00:03:23.300 warned even earlier by India that the group also known by the by the spelling national Thawheed Jamaat

00:03:29.800 was plotting church attacks. They knew as far back as January that radical Islamists possibly

00:03:35.120 tied to the group had stockpiled weapons and detonators. And again, they did nothing. But

00:03:40.820 within hours of when three churches and three hotels were bombed, Sri Lankan security services swooped

00:03:46.240 down on at least 24 suspects. That probably suggests that they also knew exactly where the group had been

00:03:53.460 operating. So they had all of these details. They had all of this intelligence. And yet they did

00:03:58.500 absolutely nothing. It probably, like I said, has to do with their very low view of religious

00:04:04.860 minorities, particularly in this case, Catholic, Catholic Christians. India is a close ally of Sri Lanka.

00:04:11.620 They've been watching the entire South Asia region for any sign of activity from Al Qaeda or ISIS. Indian

00:04:19.000 security agencies said that they have been scrutinizing the movements of this particular Islamist group

00:04:25.760 and its leader, Mohamed Zaharin. He is a known extremist who has spent time in both India and

00:04:32.120 Sri Lanka. And in recent years, he has preached terrible, hateful messages online. So this is a

00:04:39.900 public guy. This was a pretty public plot or a well-known plot. And yet, like I said, nothing was

00:04:47.960 done about it. If you don't know anything about Sri Lanka, it's an island nation. It's in the Indian

00:04:52.800 Ocean. It was completely torn apart by decades of civil war that ended in 2009. But it has, it doesn't

00:05:00.840 really have a history of this type of violence, of Islamist violence. The suicide bombings that

00:05:07.140 were kind of pioneered in the 19, starting in the 1980s, were carried out by guerrillas from the

00:05:13.460 country's Tamil ethnic minority who were mainly Hindu, but that wasn't by Muslims. So that's a little bit

00:05:21.300 different than what's happening right now. And then you even have experts saying, no, no, no, this is

00:05:25.820 not kind of a resurgence of what happened in the 1980s. This is something new entirely because that

00:05:31.560 had something to do with ethnicity. This has something to do with religion. And so it's actually

00:05:35.760 very different. But people have been worried that Islamist extremism has been on the rise in the region

00:05:43.220 for the past few years, for the past decade or so. So since the attacks, Sri Lanka has taken some kind

00:05:50.920 of steps. Now people have a curfew. They've blocked all social media. Of course, this is a reactionary

00:05:56.420 step that probably isn't going to prevent any more attacks. If they really cared about the safety of

00:06:02.500 their people, they probably would have done something with the security threats that they had all the way

00:06:07.080 back in January. I mean, the fact that they didn't even have heightened security that we know of,

00:06:11.960 knowing that this is Easter Sunday, knowing that there is this type of division, this type of

00:06:16.420 religious hatred, just shows that they really don't care. They really don't care, particularly 0.98

00:06:26.220 about the people who are worshiping a different God than Buddha. There has been religious persecution

00:06:32.440 in Asia for a long time. Christians, most of them are actually Roman Catholic. They only make up about 1.00

00:06:38.860 7% of Sri Lanka's population. Like I said, it's predominantly Buddhist. Hindus make up about 13%.

00:06:46.100 Muslims, roughly 10%. And so Catholics or Roman Catholics make up about 7%. So that's the smallest

00:06:54.700 minority of religions in Sri Lanka. This is according to the New York Times. There are experts who say that

00:07:02.080 the choice of Christians as a particular target might mean, I mean, it probably does, in my opinion, 0.99

00:07:08.580 that international extremist groups are, have a more, have a broader, specifically anti-Christian

00:07:16.440 agenda. But it underlines this growing intolerance towards religious differences and growing

00:07:22.600 violence towards religious groups. One of the worst examples of this wasn't against Christians, but one

00:07:28.040 of, one example that most of us know was the persecution of Myanmar of the Muslim minority by the

00:07:34.480 government, its members of the Buddhist, by its members of the Buddhist majority. Another was Easter Sunday 0.70

00:07:41.460 in 2016, a suicide bomber killed more than 70 people in a park in Pakistan when a group of Taliban sought to kill

00:07:49.400 and injure Christians. But in regards to this particular study, people are saying this is just a symbol of what is

00:07:57.400 happening around the world. Christians face the most extreme persecution in, in accordance with what

00:08:05.100 Open Doors Charity says. According to Pew Research Center, Christians remain the group that is targeted the

00:08:11.860 most by both governments and social groups throughout the world. This kind of takes the form of a lot of

00:08:17.980 different things, including physical assaults, arrests, detentions, desecration of holy sites, discrimination

00:08:24.820 against them in employment, education, housing. Christians and Muslims are really close when it 1.00

00:08:31.440 comes to targeting. Christians were targeted in 144 countries. That's up from 128 last year, so that's

00:08:38.500 a 12% increase over just one year. Muslims are targeted in 142 countries. The third list in this, in most 0.98

00:08:48.200 persecuted religious groups are Jews who are affected in 87 different countries throughout the world.

00:08:53.300 Uh, among the most 25, most populous countries, Egypt, Russia, India, Indonesia, Turkey, China, all

00:09:00.220 included in some of the most restrictive against religious minorities. And of course, particularly

00:09:04.560 Christians, like we said, um, according to Open Doors Charity, uh, research has recently indicated that

00:09:10.540 each day a staggering, uh, 11 Christians are killed for their faith. That's 11 Christians every day, uh, in the

00:09:18.680 top 50 countries ranked on the world watch list. So that just gives us a lot of perspective for living

00:09:25.840 in the United States. We talk a lot, or you hear a lot. We probably don't talk a lot, but you hear a lot

00:09:31.300 just about how hard this country is, how unfair this country is, how unjust this country is. But we should

00:09:36.660 consider the fact that we are really the most religiously tolerant country in the world. That doesn't 0.99

00:09:42.420 mean that we are perfect. That doesn't mean that we have a perfect record, but the fact that we are

00:09:47.800 built on this unique idea that all men and women are created equal, that they were endowed by their

00:09:53.960 creator, no matter what their faith is with certain inalienable rights among them being life, liberty,

00:09:59.280 and the pursuit of happiness. And within that is also the freedom to worship who you will, what you will,

00:10:06.320 and how you will, as long as that worship doesn't infringe on the basic human rights of other people,

00:10:12.320 doesn't infringe upon other people's safety, that there is not a state sanctioned church.

00:10:17.220 Yes. Uh, America was built on Christian values, which is exactly why that freedom has been afforded

00:10:23.180 to us. A lot of people think that freedom is a secular idea, but if you look at the most secular

00:10:27.680 countries, they are not the most free countries in the world. Uh, America was built on this crazy,

00:10:33.380 at that time, pretty radical idea that men and women should be able to follow their own conscience.

00:10:39.020 This is a very, um, Christian idea. This is a very Protestant idea, not in the sense that we are

00:10:45.940 excited by the fact that people don't follow Jesus Christ or that people are not Christians or that we

00:10:51.820 believe in relativism, but that people should be free as far as government goes, as far as government

00:10:57.380 restrictions go, people should be free to worship who, what, and how they want to. Without

00:11:03.340 any kind of restrictions, without any kind of inhibitions, um, and without any kind of

00:11:09.460 persecution. And so we just need to remember how insanely, I don't want to say lucky, but blessed

00:11:16.260 we are, how privileged we are to live in the United States of America. And we shouldn't take that for

00:11:22.020 granted. And we should, myself included, should be spending more time praying for these Christians

00:11:28.200 who are being martyred on a daily basis. I mean, think about how crazy this is that these are not

00:11:34.760 men and women who are being martyred, uh, by suicide bombings. They are not inflicting harm on other

00:11:41.460 people, but simply because they are worshiping peacefully, the God of the universe, because they

00:11:46.080 are worshiping the Messiah that died over 2000 years ago and rose again a few days later, because they

00:11:53.080 are peace of peacefully worshiping him. They are being martyred. They are being put in jail and we

00:11:59.260 enjoy so much freedom here. And we should use that freedom to pray and to support them in every way that

00:12:07.020 we possibly can. That was just a quick side note. I want to get into the right and left reaction, um,

00:12:13.820 about this because it really says a lot about where we are. So there was a debate that went on on Sunday

00:12:19.800 about the term Easter worshipers. That was the term that was used by a lot of people on the left to

00:12:25.700 describe the people who were killed worshiping on Easter. President Obama tweeted the attacks on

00:12:31.480 tourists and Easter worshipers in Sri Lanka are an attack on humanity on a day devoted to love, 0.98

00:12:37.460 redemption, and renewal. We pray for the victims and stand with the people of Sri Lanka. Hillary Clinton

00:12:42.280 tweeted on this holy weekend for many faiths, we must stand united against hatred and violence.

00:12:48.840 I'm praying for everyone affected by today's horrific attacks on Easter worshipers and

00:12:53.800 travelers in Sri Lanka. Julian Castro said a very similar thing. He said these attacks were on

00:12:59.840 Easter worshipers, Nancy Pelosi. She didn't say Easter worshipers, but, uh, she just said that

00:13:06.280 these people were attacked. Families were attacked at Durban. My heart goes out to the people of Sri Lanka,

00:13:11.760 those who lost loved ones in today's senseless violence, praying for everyone impacted. Now upon reading

00:13:18.100 these things or hearing these things, you might not think it's that big of a deal. Anyone who is mad

00:13:22.480 about someone saying Easter worshipers or saying that this is a holy weekend for many faiths, they're

00:13:26.560 blowing it out of proportion because it was Passover, uh, for the Jewish community this weekend. And so maybe

00:13:31.620 it's not that big of a deal. Maybe we are just making much ado about nothing. But when you contrast what

00:13:38.960 the top Democrats said and what many on the left said about these attacks, and you contrast that to

00:13:45.100 what was said about the attacks on mosques in New Zealand just a few months ago, it's just a little

00:13:51.980 odd. It's just a little odd to see the differences. So when it came to the New Zealand attacks, Barack

00:13:57.920 Obama said, Michelle and I send our condolences to the people of New Zealand. We grieve with you and

00:14:01.840 the Muslim community. All of us stand against hatred in all of its forms. Hillary Clinton said,

00:14:06.240 my heart breaks for New Zealand and the global Muslim community. We must continue to fight against 1.00

00:14:10.520 the perpetuation and normalization of Islamophobia and racism in all of its forms. White supremacist 0.78

00:14:15.680 terrorists must be condemned by leaders everywhere. Their murderous hatred must be stopped. Nancy 1.00

00:14:21.020 Pelosi also mentioned Islamophobia. Julian Castro also mentioned the Muslim community. Dick Durbin also

00:14:28.680 mentioned the Muslim community and his tweets. All of these tweets, of course, are online. And so you can

00:14:34.860 go and look these up if you don't want to take my word for it. And so I do think it is very logical

00:14:40.360 and good for us to ask why, why do Democrats and not just Democrats, by the way, because President

00:14:48.320 Trump also didn't mention the word Christians when he was talking about these attacks. So not just

00:14:53.540 Democrats, but why does it seem like people, especially people on the left, are allergic to the

00:14:58.820 term Christians? Why can't they say something about Christophobia, if that was a word that we used?

00:15:05.320 If Christians are truly the number one most targeted group in the world for religious persecution and

00:15:11.980 discrimination, which according to Pew Research and Open Doors Charity they are, why can't we talk about

00:15:17.440 that? It's obviously a pervasive problem. It's obviously an institutional problem. So why can't we

00:15:23.700 talk about the discrimination and the persecution against Christians? Why do we have to call them

00:15:29.040 Easter worshipers? That's just an odd phrase. I've never heard the term Easter worshipers.

00:15:34.780 Christians don't worship Easter. They worship Christ. That's why they're called Christians.

00:15:39.440 Why can't we say Christians, but we can say Muslims? And I'm not saying, by the way, that we shouldn't say

00:15:45.500 that the Muslim community was affected by the shooting in New Zealand. I think that those are 0.98

00:15:50.220 appropriate statements to make, that we should mourn with the Muslim community. Even those of us who

00:15:54.880 don't share their faith, we should mourn with them. We should pray for them. Our hearts should break for

00:15:59.560 that. And we should call out white supremacy. We should call out the cause of those kinds of crimes. 0.92

00:16:07.200 We should call out the perpetrator and the evil ideology that white supremacists purport. We should 0.63

00:16:13.260 absolutely call that out. But when it comes to another group that is persecuted, when it comes to

00:16:19.300 Christians, we also need to call out the pervasive hatred that exists against Christians throughout

00:16:24.620 the world. And we also need to call out the evil ideology of the people who carried out these

00:16:29.500 attacks, just like we called out the evil ideology of the people who care, or the person who carried

00:16:34.140 out the attacks in New Zealand. And the evil ideology this time is not white supremacy like it was in New

00:16:40.300 Zealand. The evil ideology this time is radical Islamist terror. Why don't we get a statement on that? 0.97

00:16:47.400 Why doesn't Hillary Clinton think that needs to be stopped? Why doesn't that need to be explicitly 1.00

00:16:53.060 stated? Same thing with Barack Obama. Same thing with Julian Castro. Same thing with Dick Durbin.

00:16:58.540 Same thing with Nancy Pelosi. Why can't we call out the evil ideologies that are executing these horrible 0.99

00:17:07.800 executions? Why can't we call that out? Particularly when Muslims are killing Muslims by the hundreds of 1.00

00:17:17.140 thousands every year. It is not even close. When you look at the number of lives that are taken by 1.00

00:17:23.740 radical Islamist terrorists and the lives that are taken by any other kind of terrorist, no matter what 0.52

00:17:31.040 their evil ideology is, it's not even close. Radical Islamist terrorists take more lives every year than 0.95

00:17:37.880 any other kind of terrorist group, and we're not allowed to talk about it. Why is that? And you might

00:17:44.100 think, okay, Ali, you're just politicizing this. Well, I don't think so. I don't think politicizing

00:17:50.840 something is quite the same as analyzing something, because when you refuse to analyze something,

00:17:55.600 then you miss important symbols of where our country is going and where the cultural conversation

00:18:02.340 is taking us and how it has actually evolved. My analysis of this or my thought about this,

00:18:09.760 the reason why Hillary Clinton and other top Democrats, and like I said, President Trump also

00:18:14.500 did not say Christians, and I think that that was wrong. I think that he probably should have.

00:18:19.180 I don't know if he's operating from the same motivation that I think many on the left are,

00:18:24.200 so maybe it's not quite as significant, but I do want to be fair in that to say that I didn't think

00:18:27.820 that his statement was strong enough either. Now, Vice President Pence, yes, I think Ted Cruz had a

00:18:33.160 great statement. President Trump, not so much. But like I said, I don't think his is quite the same

00:18:37.380 motivation, because the left, we know, unlike President Trump and unlike other people on the

00:18:42.440 right, are operating from this intersectionality mindset that gives people a certain amount of

00:18:49.040 credit or gives people a certain amount of attention or affirmation, whatever you want to call it,

00:18:53.340 because or based on their perceived oppression points. And so everything is viewed between,

00:19:00.800 everything is viewed from this faulty lens of privilege. And Christians, for whatever reason, 1.00

00:19:08.460 in postmodern academia, has been associated with things that the left sees as privileged.

00:19:15.340 It's associated with the West and Western values. It is associated with democracy, with capitalism.

00:19:23.080 It is associated with the Constitution. It's associated with our founding. It is associated with

00:19:29.460 whiteness, they would probably say. Now, these are not exact or correct correlations that they are

00:19:37.880 making. But that's the generalization that I think that they're drawing here, that Christianity

00:19:42.360 is typically associated with privileged groups in America. And therefore, they're not afforded the

00:19:49.080 same sympathy and the same compassion as, say, Muslim groups. And so we don't need to talk about 0.99

00:19:54.120 Christophobia. We don't need to talk about the pervasiveness of Christian persecution,

00:19:57.760 because Christians are fine. This is, you know, we're built on a Christian nation. The founding

00:20:02.160 fathers were Christian. And Christianity has been used for all kinds of oppression and atrocities.

00:20:07.620 It's been used to justify slavery, the left would say. And so we just don't need to afford it the same

00:20:13.660 kind of empathy that we afford other communities, other minority communities. But like we said,

00:20:20.000 that is not based on fact, considering that Christians are the most persecuted group that exists

00:20:26.020 in the entire world. This is yet another example of social justice not being actual justice. Social

00:20:35.460 justice says that we need to prop up the people that we view as oppressed and we need to press down the

00:20:41.540 people that we view as the oppressor. For whatever reason, the left sees Christians as the oppressor

00:20:48.260 and they see Muslims and other groups as the oppressed. And yet, factually, statistically, internationally,

00:20:55.400 that is just not true. But this is yet another way that we see that social justice, this idea of lifting up

00:21:04.700 particular groups at the expense of others is not actual justice. Why? Because it's not based on truth.

00:21:09.620 It's not based on evidence. And therefore, it is not just. I have told you before, if lady justice,

00:21:16.840 true lady justice is blindfolded and she's holding the scales in her hands and she's weighing the facts 0.98

00:21:23.440 of a case in order to make a truly just decision, social justice has her eyes wide open and she has a 0.91

00:21:30.160 checklist out and she is giving people points based on their minority status. That's what social justice is. 1.00

00:21:37.740 And that's not justice at all because it's based on collective judgments of groups rather than

00:21:43.280 individual justice of the individual judgments of groups. And that's, I think, what is really

00:21:49.020 motivating this kind of apathy and this vagueness in regards to Christians, because for faulty reasons,

00:21:57.760 they are seen as more privileged. They are seen as white. They're seen as American. They are seen as

00:22:02.700 Western. When that's not true. Christianity is growing by the day in these Asian countries.

00:22:09.540 And you're going to tell me, you're going to tell me that this is a privileged religion when

00:22:14.120 11 Christians, at least 11 Christians every day are dying peacefully for their faith,

00:22:20.160 not by suicide bombings, but peacefully for their faith. And you're going to tell me that they don't

00:22:25.100 deserve your explicit recognition, that we don't need to be talking about the pervasive

00:22:29.780 and institutionalized persecution of Christians around the world. I don't think so. But see,

00:22:36.200 these intersectionalists, these people who are getting all of their information from postmodern

00:22:40.420 academia, don't really know anything about Christianity. All of the things that they say

00:22:46.020 that they're fighting against, institutionalized injustice and racism and discrimination, these are

00:22:51.260 all the things the left says that they're fighting against. Christians have been fighting for

00:22:55.200 in an actual or fighting against in an actual just way since the beginning, since its founding.

00:23:01.620 There is a book called How Christianity Changed the World by Alvin Schmidt that really kind of

00:23:06.420 outlines all of the influence and the long history of seeking justice for those who are oppressed

00:23:13.060 by Christians specifically. So if you look at outlawing infanticide, outlawing child abandonment,

00:23:19.480 even back to the gladiatorial games in ancient Rome, ending the practice of human sacrifice in

00:23:29.800 European cultures, banning pedophilia, polygamy, prohibiting the burning down of widows in India.

00:23:36.340 You can also look at William Wilberforce, who, of course, was a committed Christian, and he

00:23:40.800 led the abolition against slavery in England and the United States. Two-thirds of the abolitionists

00:23:47.880 were Christian pastors. Of course, Martin Luther King, there is some disagreement about whether

00:23:55.080 or not he was saved, but a lot of the principles and the values that he pushed forth were founded

00:24:01.860 in the Bible, were founded on this radical idea of unconditional love and seeing people equally.

00:24:06.560 Even if you look at the founding documents that were imperfectly applied throughout history,

00:24:11.020 of course, we knew there was slavery, or we know there was slavery, we know there was discrimination,

00:24:14.900 we know there is inequality that doesn't change, that the idea that all men and women are created

00:24:20.820 equal is a biblical Christian idea that has done more good for not just this country, but more good

00:24:27.820 for the world, people of all faiths and all genders and all backgrounds, than any other human idea.

00:24:34.580 Christians have always been behind seeking justice and loving mercy. That does not say, 0.99

00:24:40.460 that does not mean that Christians have been perfect. That does not mean that wrong things have not

00:24:44.880 been done in the name of Christianity. Of course it has, but it doesn't take a genius to look at 0.99

00:24:52.540 something that has been done in the name of Christianity, a sin that has been done in the 0.96

00:24:57.100 name of Christianity, and say, okay, is this really Christian? Well, let's look at the Bible. Let's look

00:25:03.020 at the life that Jesus led. No, that doesn't look like that. So we can say, sure, bad things have been

00:25:08.380 done in the name of Christianity, but that's not what Jesus called us to. That's not what the Bible

00:25:13.160 calls us to. The Bible calls us to seek justice, to love mercy, to try to instill or execute or

00:25:19.280 implement the best we can. God's just laws here on earth. As Jesus says in the Lord's prayer,

00:25:26.060 let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Christians have always been behind bringing God's 1.00

00:25:32.980 kingdom down to earth and making this the most just, the most equal, the most livable planet

00:25:39.320 limits that it can possibly be. We have always been behind justice. All of the things that the

00:25:44.860 left says that they are fighting for, Christians have always been behind it. And the justice that we

00:25:50.260 have sought is, it's not based on someone's skin color. It's not based on gender. It's not based on

00:25:56.960 perceived, perceived, the perceived perception, or I don't know, the perceptions of, of oppression.

00:26:05.220 It has been based on truth. It has been based on evidence. It has been based on this idea that men

00:26:10.580 and women are created in the image of God and therefore have dignity. That's why Christians 0.99

00:26:16.460 have always been behind this. I mean, even if you look at the Holocaust, if you have ever read about 0.98

00:26:21.620 Corrie ten Boom in hiding Jews from the Nazis, if you ever read about Bonhoeffer who fought hard

00:26:29.360 against the Nazis in Nazi Germany, these were gospel believing, Bible believing Christians. These

00:26:36.380 weren't agnostics. These weren't Christians in name only. These were people who believed in the

00:26:42.480 power of the gospel. And because they believed in the power of the gospel, they sought to bring God's

00:26:48.100 justice here on earth by fighting for the least of these and fighting for the oppressed.

00:26:52.560 And so the only reason, the only reason why people on the left who says, who say that they,

00:26:58.440 you know, or who don't support Christians or who don't want to speak out explicitly in defense of

00:27:04.900 Christians, they don't know their history. And we also know that this is going to happen, 1.00

00:27:09.520 that this kind of persecution, that this kind of ambivalence at best against Christians is going to

00:27:15.800 happen more and more until the end of time. Jesus said, blessed are those who are persecuted for

00:27:21.760 righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And that is important for us to remember,

00:27:26.420 that's Matthew 5.10, that those who are persecuted, whether it's in Sri Lanka, whether it's in China,

00:27:31.560 whether it's in Egypt, or whether it's here, we are blessed. Yes, that means that, that doesn't mean

00:27:37.540 that we shouldn't fight against persecution. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be against it and

00:27:42.520 speak out against it. But we also realize that those who are being martyred and those who are suffering

00:27:49.760 because of their faith are blessed because of that. The reason, according to Jesus, that the

00:27:56.680 terrorist in Sri Lanka specifically committed these acts of violence against Christians is because

00:28:02.240 they don't know God. They don't know the God of the Bible. They don't know the Christian God. 0.52

00:28:07.580 He said, they will do these things because they have not known the Father nor me. So it is a heart

00:28:13.300 problem. Same thing in New Zealand with the white supremacist who shot up the Muslim mosques. He 0.92

00:28:20.480 didn't know God. It was a heart problem. It wasn't a gun problem. He had a heart issue. Jesus said,

00:28:27.520 John 16, two through four, I have said these things to you that when the hour comes, you may remember

00:28:34.060 that I told them to you. And so he warned us about persecution. Of course, the shooter in New Zealand

00:28:41.340 had nothing to do with Christian persecution per se, but that was just another example of someone

00:28:46.460 who didn't know God and so carried out an atrocious act of violence because he had a heart problem.

00:28:52.000 But as far as Christian persecution goes, all of this is happening because God said it was going to 1.00

00:28:56.880 happen. Jesus said it was going to happen. He says this, I'm sure that you, most of you have probably

00:29:02.780 heard this in John 16. I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away for if I do not go

00:29:08.160 away, the helper will not come to you. Helper being the Holy Spirit. But if I go, I will send him to

00:29:13.080 you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment

00:29:18.560 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me concerning righteousness, because I go to the

00:29:23.920 father and you will see me no longer concerning judgment because the ruler of this world is judged.

00:29:30.380 Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful,

00:29:36.100 but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has

00:29:41.180 come. But when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish for joy that a human

00:29:45.940 being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your

00:29:51.220 hearts will rejoice and no one will take your joy from you. Behold, the hour is coming. Indeed, it has

00:29:57.540 come when you will be scattered each to his own home and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone for the

00:30:03.320 fathers with me. I have said these things to you that in me, you may have peace in the world. You

00:30:09.100 will have tribulation, but take heart. I have overcome the world. So what we can, what we can

00:30:15.160 take from all of this, what we can take from the very disturbing, um, growth in antipathy towards

00:30:21.120 Christians, the at least apathy towards Christians, what we can take from the increasing persecution

00:30:26.860 against Christians, the increasing martyrdom of Christians throughout the world is that Jesus is 0.97

00:30:32.720 still on his throne, that he has not gotten up and said, what the heck is going on? I did not see this

00:30:38.240 coming that more than 2000 years ago, he told us this is going to happen, but I'm leaving. I'm ascending

00:30:43.960 to the father after I die and raise again so that I can send my helper to you. So I can send my Holy

00:30:50.760 Spirit to you and the Holy Spirit is going to empower you. He's going to be with you. And I am

00:30:55.880 never going to leave you even till the end of the age. Look, this hard stuff is going to happen, but you

00:31:01.260 have victory over the world because I had victory over it. And in me, you get to also escape the sting

00:31:08.880 of death. You also get to escape, uh, the traps of sin. And because of that, you have power because of

00:31:16.900 that, you have the ability to endure. He knew that all of this was going to pass. He knew that Sri Lanka 0.98

00:31:22.440 was going to happen. He knew that there would be a growing hatred against his people. And he still

00:31:28.400 said, blessed are you who are persecuted. He still said, take heart. And so we can trust that he is not

00:31:35.220 freaking out about this. Does it sadden him? Yes, of course. His heart breaks for the brokenhearted.

00:31:41.420 He binds their wounds. Yes, we have a beautifully empathetic God. That was one beautiful

00:31:46.880 thing that we saw so tangibly in Jesus Christ is his empathy towards us and his, uh, ability to

00:31:54.800 relate to our struggles and relate to our weaknesses, even though he was completely without sin. That's

00:32:01.160 one of the beautiful things that we see in Jesus's life, but he is in complete control. He is completely

00:32:07.140 sovereign. Nothing throws God off his game. Nothing messes up his plans. As Job said, there is nothing,

00:32:14.000 uh, that can thwart God's will. Absolutely nothing. He is sovereign over everything. He does not change.

00:32:20.220 He does not waver. His ultimate plan of redemption, uh, to rescue those who believe in him is still in

00:32:27.580 place and it cannot be moved a single inch. And I want to encourage all of us. If we, if we in this

00:32:33.900 lifetime who are living in America actually see the systemic, uh, persecution of Christians, and I'm

00:32:39.920 talking large scale to where we fear for our lives and we fear violence, uh, we should not be afraid.

00:32:47.340 We should not be afraid that we are actually told to hate our own lives for the sake of the gospel,

00:32:52.580 that all of our afflictions are light and momentary compared to the glory that we will have after we

00:32:59.120 die. And nothing can stop the power of the gospel. Absolutely nothing. Whether it's suicide

00:33:05.680 bombings, whether it's government regulations, whether it's imprisonment, whether it's discrimination,

00:33:10.760 whether it is, uh, the, the attempts to censor our speech, whether it is the government infringing

00:33:17.860 on what is said in the pulpit or how Bibles are distributed, no matter, no law, no power, uh, on earth

00:33:26.280 can ever stop the authority of the gospel and the spreading of the gospel and the power that it has in

00:33:33.800 human lives. And so we should not be afraid. We, we should not fear what's to come because we have

00:33:39.500 the same helper that those in Sri Lanka, who those of them who were truly worshiping the God of the

00:33:45.460 universe, truly worshiping Christ. We have that same Holy spirit and we have that same strength and it's

00:33:50.780 all going to be worth it. Yes, we are blessed to live in the United States, but one day it will not

00:33:54.980 be as easy as it is today. And we are told to stand firm and we have the power to do that through the

00:34:00.460 Holy spirit. So I'm not saying that we should be happy about the suffering that's to come. Uh,

00:34:07.200 but we do know that it's part of God's plan. And the other thing to remember is that the church has

00:34:11.300 always thrived in the margins. It's always thrived in the margins. That's where the true believers

00:34:16.320 shine forth. There's going to be plenty of people that fall away that we thought were Christians,

00:34:19.860 that we thought were solid, that we thought knew their theology. But when push came to shove,

00:34:24.700 when it got hard, they weren't, they weren't willing to stick it out. But those who are faithful

00:34:29.720 until the end through the power of the Holy spirit will be those who thrive on the margins

00:34:34.060 of society and who will be given the power to endure the persecution that we are about to face. And

00:34:39.720 so we have hope no matter what our politicians here, uh, here today say, no matter what is done

00:34:46.440 abroad, we have hope, we have strength, we have the power to endure. And that should be, that should

00:34:53.880 be where our joy comes from and where gladness comes from. We should not despair. Um, there's

00:34:59.560 no reason to God doesn't give us the option of desperation. Thankfully he gives us the option

00:35:04.020 of rejoicing and hope. So I hope that you have a great rest of your Wednesday. We will be back here

00:35:08.340 on Friday with a fabulous episode and I will see you guys then.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - April 24, 2019

Ep 103 ｜ Christian Persecution

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