By Selwyn Duke

“Haters of humanity,” the Romans called the early Christians, whom they infamously would sometimes throw to the lions. Much later in history, the French revolutionaries would try eliminating Christianity by, in part, creating a new calendar with 10-day weeks excluding the Lord’s Day. Mexico’s revolutionary government, beginning in 1926, instituted anti-clerical laws that prescribed the arrest of priests for wearing clerical garb in public or criticizing the government. Spain’s “Red Terror” (1936-1939) saw the execution of more than 6,800 clergy and religious people and the persecution of religious communities. The Soviets imprisoned and executed religious leaders and introduced “scientific atheism,” while the Nazis aimed to replace Christianity with neo-paganism and, as a ploy to seduce people away from the authentic faith, trumpeted what they called “Positive Christianity.” (It portrayed Jesus as a Nordic character persecuted by Jewish authorities.) 

Yet there’s a notable point of history here: These Roman, French revolutionary, Mexican- and Spanish-leftist, Soviet, and Nazi persecutors are long gone.

Christianity remains.

Eternal Faith

Rome’s poets famously dubbed their metropolis the “Eternal City,” but what the persecutors among them didn’t know was that they were tangling with the eternal faith. (Or perhaps some did know — or at least did thus fear.) But all the victimizers became the vanquished and, if we could anthropomorphize these movements, we could say that they form Christianity’s blessed trail of dead bodies.

One of the many things that should give Christians hope and bring them joy….

Read the rest here.