>>True, there has always been opposition to Christ and His followers, but the opposition is getting more marked and more nasty at this time. No question about it.
Worse than crucifixion, throwing them to the lions, burning them alive?
If we started living for Christ instead of just using him as a decoration for our mostly-secular lives, then you’d see that the modern crusade against Christians is laughable! Now, that’s in the western world. In many foreign countries, Christians do have to undergo the kind of persecution that early followers had to endure.
Look at it this way: if some store declares “War on Christmas” by ordering its employees to say “Happy Holidays”, do we refuse to shop there? Perhaps.
But what if that store is the only place that has the special “must-have” toy that every kid is demanding this year? Do you sneak in, buy the toy, sneer at the poor hourly employee that has to say “Happy Holidays”? Or do you explain to your child that he didn’t get the toy because your relationship with God is far more important than one toy and one day he will understand?
There is a crusade against Christ, and most Christians are marching with the forces of the secular world.
As for the west, yes sure we have it easy as Christians, compared to our co-religionists in, say North Korea, or anywhere in Muslim majority countries, but my statement stands. It is getting worse in the West. Its not reached the point of crucifixion, throwing to lions and burning alive yet. But it is not impossible that kind of oppression will come, a thought that was inconceivable even twenty years ago. I have tangled with some of the new breed of radical atheists and secularists on the internet and I tell you straight, if they ever get into power you and me will find ourselves in some gulag double quick.
I personally try and stand against the attractions of materialism as much as I can.
We haven’t seen anything yet. Look at the American pastor being held in prison in Iran and what they are doing to him. Are we prepared to suffer the same if necessary? I like to think so but also pray that I don’t. Look at Christian persecution in other nations. We have a long way to go before we can say we are persecuted.