Persecution of the Persecutors

This is not the church marquee that I passed today, but for a visual, I find this amusing as well as interesting. I'll give them witty!

On my way home from Durham today I passed a church marquee that stated the topic for this coming Sunday. It read:

"Preparing your faith for a hostile world"

Now, I may be the only one that finds this amusing, but given my experience and history in the religious (read Christian Southern Baptist) realm, I find this statement very ironic. It's interesting that the only time I have felt any hostility has come, not from the secular world, rather it has come from OTHER CHRISTIANS!!!!

My wife made a comment when I was "asked to resign from my last church" (read fired without the church feeling guilty), because of my belief that we are supposed to show love to everyone, no matter race, creed, or lifestyle, that this is probably the closest we would come to experiencing persecution. I've thought a lot about that statement since then. I don't want to make light of, or diminish in any way the very real persecution that Christians have faced throughout history. I do, however, think she has a point. The only place that we have been treated hostility because of our beliefs has come from individuals calling themselves Christians involved in an institution supposedly built upon love and grace.

Ironic?

And I wonder why, after telling others what had happened, a big response i received was, "and that's why I stopped going to church, because of people like that!"

Sad!

How is it that the persecuted has become the persecutors?

A conundrum.