KENNETH HARROD

‘Nigeria has seen horrendous violence against Christians’

At the risk of sounding like a politician, my first reaction to this question is: It depends how you define persecution. Clearly we don’t see the oppression, the violence, the imprisonments and the killing of Christians – for being Christians – that occurs in many countries. More specifically, we do not at present see organised, sustained opposition to the Christian faith – either from the state, of from groups of religious extremists. Undoubtedly we still enjoy considerable freedom.

One can compare this with countries like Nigeria, which has seen an horrendous amount of violence perpetrated against Christians in recent years; or Iran and China, where the “underground church” faces regular suppression; or Pakistan, where the Christian minority is vulnerable to attack and abuse.

On the other hand, we have, in recent years, seen cases where Christians in the UK have been discriminated against, and where attempts have been made to prevent them publicly proclaiming the Gospel or witnessing for their faith. Often this opposition has come from an increasingly intolerant political correctness that seems biased against Christianity. …

Kenneth Harrod works for Release International, an organisation serving the persecuted church around the world. Because of the nature of his work, he is not pictured

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STEPHEN TOMKINS

‘The word “persecution” is hard to use without double standards’

When is persecution not persecution? Catholic church history books tend to talk about the persecution of Catholic missionaries executed in Japan, but of “countering heresy” when it comes to their own execution of Cathars or Protestants. Protestant histories describe persecution at the hands of Bloody Mary, but talk of their own “efforts to stop the spread of Anabaptist teaching” by execution.

Those who lower the bar on definitions of persecution to include exclusion are usually guilty of the same thing. If Lord Carey argues that someone excluded from a job or a group for being a Christian is persecuted, I also want to hear him say that it was his policy as Archbishop to persecute gay Christians. You would have thought that the word either means “exclude” or doesn’t. In fact, the rule seems to be that it is persecution when they do it to our side, but not when we do it to them.

The word “persecution” is very hard to use without double standards, which is one good reason to avoid it. Another is illustrated by a new book by the church historian Candida Moss: The Myth of Persecution: How early Christians invented a story of martyrdom. It attacks the tradition that, in the Roman Empire: “Vast numbers of believers were thrown to the lions, tortured, or burned alive because they refused to renounce Christ.” These stories are exaggerations and forgeries, she says. …

Stephen Tomkins is editor of  Reform