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Christ was persecuted, but what about Christians? [BARF ALERT]
CNN ^ | 3/31/2013 | John Blake

Posted on 03/31/2013 6:58:17 AM PDT by markomalley

She walked into the Roman arena where the wild beasts awaited her. She trembled not from fear but from joy.

Her name was Vibia Perpetua. She was just 22, a young mother singing hymns as the crowd jeered and a lion, leopard and wild cow encircled her.

One of the beasts attacked, hurling her to the ground. She covered an exposed thigh with her bloody robe to preserve her modesty and groped in the dust for her hair pin so she could fix her disheveled hair.

And when a Roman executioner approached Perpetua with a sword, her last words before collapsing were aimed at her Christian companions: “Stand fast in the faith, and love you all one another and do not let our sufferings be a stumbling block to you.”

Millions of Christians worldwide will celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus on this Easter Sunday. But the story of how the church rose to prominence after Jesus’ death is being turned upside down.

(snip)

But that script is getting a rewrite. The first Christians were never systematically persecuted by the Romans, and most martyrdom stories – with the exception of a handful such as Perpetua's – were exaggerated and invented, several scholars and historians say. It wasn’t just how the early Christians died that inspired so many people in the ancient world; it was how they lived.

“You had much better odds of winning the lottery than you would have becoming a martyr,” says Joyce E. Salisbury, author of “The Blood of Martyrs: Unintended Consequences of Ancient Violence.”

“The odds were pretty slim. More people read about martyrs than ever saw one.”

Do Christians have a martyr complex today?

(Excerpt) Read more at religion.blogs.cnn.com ...


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS:
Yet another sentence in the ongoing effort by the secularists to demolish Christianity.

Thankfully, some of us have read the book.

(SPOILER ALERT: they lose)

1 posted on 03/31/2013 6:58:17 AM PDT by markomalley
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To: markomalley

What’s the bastard trying to say? The world needs to persecute more Christians just to make history more accurate? What about the Christians in the Middle East. This writer must be giddy that they are being systematically raped, pillaged and killed! @XX!!OO@X!


2 posted on 03/31/2013 7:02:20 AM PDT by poobear (Socialism in the minds of the elites, is a con-game for the serfs, nothing more.)
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To: markomalley

OUR LADY’S message
to MIRJANA SOLDO (Medjugorie)
for the ENTIRE WORLD!
March 18, 2013

“Dear children! I call you to, with complete trust and joy, bless the name of the Lord and, day by day, to give Him thanks from the heart for His great love. My Son, through that love which He showed by the Cross, gave you the possibility to be forgiven for everything; so that you do not have to be ashamed or to hide, and out of fear not to open the door of your heart to my Son. To the contrary, my children, reconcile with the Heavenly Father so that you may be able to come to love yourselves as my Son loves you. When you come to love yourselves, you will also love others; in them you will see my Son and recognize the greatness of His love. Live in faith! Through me, my Son is preparing you for the works which He desires to do through you - works through which He desires to be glorified. Give Him thanks. Especially thank Him for the shepherds - for your intercessors in the reconciliation with the Heavenly Father. I am thanking you, my children. Thank you.”


3 posted on 03/31/2013 7:03:03 AM PDT by Leo Carpathian (FReeeeepisssssed)
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To: markomalley

My Mother-inlaw has an old friend living in the same building whose daughter recently used a New Age healer to cure her depression.

And what was the treatment?

To go to Catholic Church and pray with the Catholics even though she is not Christian.


4 posted on 03/31/2013 7:34:31 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper (Happy Blessed Easter, All FReepers!)
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To: markomalley

Is this the same guy who wrote how early Americans didn’t have guns? ;-)


5 posted on 03/31/2013 7:54:37 AM PDT by Twotone (Marte Et Clypeo)
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To: markomalley

Oh Lord, give me the strength to face my persecutors as You did.
Give me the Grace to reach out to the blind, and the wicked.
Give me the knowledge to see my destiny linked to You my Savior..
Give me the power to bear my cross without complaint, to forgive those that wish me evil, to pray for those who do not yet believe, and join with You on the cross my pathetic sufferings.
Bless me Lord, for I have sinned, You have forgiven, and given Your life for my redemption.
Thank You for my life, my suffering, and most of all, thank You for loving me, a wretched sinner.


6 posted on 03/31/2013 7:55:45 AM PDT by mardi59 (IMPEACH OBAMA NOW!!!!!)
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To: markomalley

Another anti-Christian hitpiece by CNN and they don’t call that persecution??


7 posted on 03/31/2013 8:12:43 AM PDT by CodeToad (Liberals are bloodsucking ticks. We need to light the matchstick to burn them off.)
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To: markomalley

I’m sure that 1800 year old story happened just as narrated, too. Sure.


8 posted on 03/31/2013 8:25:16 AM PDT by Hardastarboard (Buck Off, Bronco Bama)
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To: markomalley; All
All true believer saints have tributation and persecution - this is evident from the Apostle Paul who through God, wrote to us about our current and present tribulation, persecution, sufferings, which all Christian will at some time suffer for Christ's sake:

God comforts us in our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort others:

II Corinthians 1:4: Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
II Corinthians 1:5: For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.
II Corinthians 1:6: And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.
II Corinthians 1:7: And our hope of you is stedfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation.

The present time has sufferings for all believers - mature Christians should not be surprised at this fact:

Romans 8:18: For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

We must glory in tribulations for it bring about patience and hope and utimately makes us not ashamed:

Romans 5:3: And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
Romans 5:4: And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
Romans 5:5: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

Romans 8:35: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Romans 8:36: As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Romans 8:37: Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
Romans 8:38: For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Romans 8:39: Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.


But God comforts us and in the end, we are MORE than CONQUERORS through Christ that loves us

9 posted on 03/31/2013 9:01:31 AM PDT by AmbassadorForChrist
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To: markomalley
The first Christians were never systematically persecuted by the Romans, and most martyrdom stories – with the exception of a handful such as Perpetua's – were exaggerated and invented, several scholars and historians say. It wasn’t just how the early Christians died that inspired so many people in the ancient world; it was how they lived. “You had much better odds of winning the lottery than you would have becoming a martyr,” says Joyce E. Salisbury, author of “The Blood of Martyrs: Unintended Consequences of Ancient Violence.”

I'd be worried, if CNN's ratings weren't consistently in the toilet.

10 posted on 03/31/2013 9:32:49 AM PDT by Alex Murphy ("If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all" - Isaiah 7:9)
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To: markomalley
Forget those antiseptic portraits of Roman cities you see in biblical moves such as “The Robe.” Roman cities were overcrowded, raw sewage ran in the streets

Baloney. The ancient cities had excellent and extensive sewer systems and water supplies that were not equaled till the mid 1800s.

If they had not, they would have been subject to the same demographic pressures as medieval and early modern cities, where the death rate vastly exceeded the birth rate and city populations were maintained or grew only because of constant heavy immigration from the country, where less dense populations made disease transmission less efficient.

11 posted on 03/31/2013 9:36:50 AM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: poobear

The media centered in the DC, NY and LA areas is completely provincial.

They have little knowledge of what occurs outside their spheres.

In China, the Underground Catholic Church is full of martyrs imprisoned, beaten, tortured and killed.

Africa and the middle east are the scenes of horrors.

Egypt has torture rooms for the Copts and they are killed with impunity.

Forgive our journalists for their naval gazing.

They are progressives after all.


12 posted on 03/31/2013 9:39:52 AM PDT by OpusatFR
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To: AmbassadorForChrist
Jesus Christ Himself was a bit more blunt about it:

Matthew 16:
24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life? 27 For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done.

(See also Mark 8 and Luke 9)

John 15:
18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. 21 But all this they will do to you on my account, because they do not know him who sent me.

And, for good measure:

Luke 6:
22 “Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of man! 23 Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

We can't say He didn't warn us.

13 posted on 03/31/2013 9:51:23 AM PDT by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilization is Aborting, Buggering, and Contracepting itself out of existence.)
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To: markomalley
"Thankfully, some of us have read the book"

Amen!

We only have to look at how Jesus Himself was treated to realize what the world thinks of Him and those that follow Him.Even when we examine ourselves and our own state we realize just what an enemy of God the flesh is and how hard it fights against His law.Were it not for His Spirit we'd probably be persecuting right along with the rest.He did say if we weren't for Him we'd be against Him.

14 posted on 03/31/2013 9:54:02 AM PDT by mitch5501 ("make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things ye shall never fall")
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To: markomalley

If you read the entire article, it’s not nearly as bad as the excerpts. He quotes from both those who deny and those who insist on the reality of martyrdom.

Some actual facts. Roman persecution of Christians was not consistent or constant over the period between Christ and Constantine or over the entire empire. It was limited to episodic enforcement of the laws in various areas at various times. Usually the main victims were bishops and priests, not ordinary rank and file Christians.

Estimates are only that, of course, but the toll estimates vary from 10,000 to 100,000 for the entire period from 33 to 313. While a very large number, given the immense time span and area covered, this does not indicate any consistent attempt at genocide.

It is probable more Christians were martyred during the 1600s in Japan than under the Roman Empire. 37,000 were beheaded in one incident; the Romans had nothing like that.

Sadly, it is also true that a large multiple of those martyred by the Empire have been created since Constantine by other “Christians.”


15 posted on 03/31/2013 9:54:11 AM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: Sherman Logan

I don’t think anybody believes that persecution is automatically equivalent to genocide or even attempted genocide.


16 posted on 03/31/2013 10:00:25 AM PDT by markomalley (Nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good -- Leo XIII)
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To: markomalley
Still, being a Christian in the first century was a risky move – persecution was significant. Jesus and most of his apostles were executed, he says.

What the article doesn't say is WHY first century Christians were persecuted. It wasn't just because they refused to give allegiance to the Roman emperor. It was because of a series of revolts against Rome by Jews. In the first century it was difficult to tell a Christian from a Jews. They both worshipped and honored the 7th day sabbath, they both refrained from eating meat that God said not to eat in the scriptures, they both observed the same festivals.

So Christians and Jews became objects of hatred within the Roman empire. Sadly this caused many Christians to abandon the observance of God's sabbath, his holy days and his food laws in order to stop being targets.

Traditional Christianity grew because it morphed into acceptability within Rome. First century Christianity survived in only small pockets and soon became targets of Jews AND Christians.

17 posted on 03/31/2013 10:16:22 AM PDT by DouglasKC
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Nah, no persecution of Christians in the world, not then, not now, not ever...

http://www.persecutionreport.org/

Mark


18 posted on 03/31/2013 11:18:10 AM PDT by MarkL (Do I really look like a guy with a plan?)
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