I need everyone who reads this blog to pitch in here. Very simple question. Even if you have never commented before, please do now.
If you are a Christian...
When in your life have you been "persecuted" for the sake of the gospel? Please let me know if you have ever suffered directly because of your commitment to Christ. No need to tell the whole story (unless you want to). Just briefly tell us what happened and why.
If you have never been persecuted, please just write: "I've never been persecuted."
*Of course, in America we have not been persecuted nearly as seriously as in other countries. However, I'm looking for anything. What "harm" has come to you because you are a Christian?
15 comments:
i almost blush to include my experience because of how sever persecution can be in other countries, but here goes: i worked at a barnes & noble for a year, & once i started taking my walk seriously, my supervisor became very antagonistic. some fellow workers still liked me & thought i was a pretty cool guy, but several hated me for being a christian. i eventually was sort of forced out because my supervisor used scheduling & other ways to make it too inconvenient & difficult to work there.
i've experienced similar things, even once when i worked at a cabinet shop, but other than work there's just the normal stuff where you try to share your faith & sometimes someone wants to tear your head off lol! i remember once a fellow church member & i were passing out flyers at a trailer park & a guy basically ran us off with a weapon in his hand lol.
like i said, that's pretty vanilla compared pastors in china who are locked up or simply "disappear." but i think persecution is anything difficult you experience that you would not have experienced if not for being a christian or sharing the gospel.
good question
I've never been persecuted. This seems to be a timely topic though. I've been reading through Let the Nations Be Glad in the chapter about suffering recently and my pastor (Mark Driscoll) has asked the same question of members of Mars Hill for his upcoming series on I & II Peter.
I've faced some situations that could be considered persecution in India a couple of times. However, my life has not been threatened, and I've never been beaten as many in our world have.
Nothing major. Just been mocked and scorned for street witnessing. The worst was open air preaching in Greenville. I've been cursed at and had people openly blaspheme God in my face. Many people shouting profanity and mocking God and his word. We even had some professing Christians who thought we should not preach the law of God and the justice of God with the grace of God. They grew angry with us and insisted we just needed to tell only about the love of God.
Recently someone very close to me told me that they weren't going to visit my blog anymore because of its "religious" content.
Street preaching and witnessing at various venues: laughed at, cursed at, yelled at, threatened by cops to be put in jail, spit at, pushed, knocked off preaching stool.
About 60% or more of the verbal persecution I receive comes from professing Christians.
Tony
Asked not to teach anymore, encouraged to leave and shunned by many members of a church I was a member of for 22 years after I finally understood the gospel and started proclaiming it.
I have been given the cold shoulder by co-workers after talking with them about Christ. One co-worker who was a good friend never talked to me again (only once briefly when I saw him in a store years later). I came close to loosing a job after confronting someone I thought was a Christian.
LisaB
In a public speaking class at a public university, students gave talks on sex, condoms, etc (one student even passed out condoms). So I gave a talk on the way of salvation in the scriptures. I was given a zero on my speech and the professor attempted to fail me from the course for speaking on religion to a captive audience. Surprisingly, the students supported me while the professor tried to ruin me. Thankfully, God worked it all out in the end.
I agree with Mike Fox in that my experiences with "persecution" are very vanilla and pale in comparison to those around the world.
While time has balmed much of it, being a Christian in a "non-religious" family has sewn deep seeds of disconnect, regret for words unspoken, and tension in my relationship with my family.
To turn the question over, for years I was the executer in my own personal "persecution." Especially as a new Christian, I struggled with a constant guilt over not being more vocal about my faith, and feared the weight of my family's salvation on my shoulders alone. I was also intensely hard on myself, knowing that my words and actions were a reflection of the gospel. Of course being a typical teenager, I often feel short of the standard I set for myself :/ To this day, my family shows me my weaknesses most clearly(and I'm thankful for it!).
Thankfully, time, growth and prayer has helped tremendously. However, until the day(God willing) when grace comes to my family, I will always struggle with the feeling of being an "alien" in my own family; the minor pangs of persecution come out in the little things like dinner table disagreements, and in the bigger things the major I chose in college, the husband I chose to marry, and even the church we choose to go to. But God is sovereign, and I'm so thankful for who I am and where I came from. I love my family, and am thankful for the endurance I've gained through them.
Never had be perecuted for my Faith in Christ but had been ridicule (spelling) for my Faith in Christ. I still continue to share my Faith to others.
One of my brother still thinks that I am wasting my time to share my Faith to others to Christ because he believes that everyone will go to heaven and no one will go to hell.
Other would thinks that I am old fashion when I refuse to lower the Biblical standard such as to save it for marriage. They would teased me or try to encourage me to break the standard. They don't like my high bar standard.
Here in USA America, we aren't being persecuted like other country such as India, China and other place.
Let us continue to be Bold as a Lion to witness to other to Christ!
'Guerite ~ BoldLion
I was cussed out by a guy at my old job because I was defending the exclusivity of Christ. He got in my face, but he backed away and took a break. Sadly, he was a professing believer.
I've never been physically persecuted. I have faced ridicule. I remember in college being made fun of for going to a local high school to reach out to youths. For the most part I've face relative ease and comfort.
I don't even think I can use the term "persecuted" I would use the term "flack". It always comes from just living out the living word. I get lots of snide remarks from family members for the way that I serve my husband and submit to him. I think this will be a life long thing. I'm getting used to it though and find joy in the fact that the Lord has been so gracious to me-to teach me to love my family and it breaks my heart that they are missing out!
When I was working at the Jr. High as an aide I also got a lot of flack for refusing to gossip. I was just very convicted about that and realized that I couldn't partake in that anymore. When I made that clear- I became the one who was slandered. The problem mostly with that was that there were "cliques" of women within the school- and they just made my last few months there a misery after that. I even had to switch the teacher that I was working with bc I was pregnant at the time and she was screaming at me infront of the students and it was causing a lot of stress. It was a sad situation but God is so faithful because I believe that He was really cultivating a heart in me that longed to fufill my role as a stay-at-home mom and to take pleasure in a life that is commited to the Lord and my husband. I am truly lacking nothing by not being in the working world! To God be the glory!
Hi, Outside the Church you might expect to be persecuted. But what is most harmful and heart breaking is the persecution the comes from within the Visible church. That has been my experience. It has been that way from the very begining. But God knows those that are His.
In Christ
Doug
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