PERSECUTION AND THE SPREAD OF THE GOSPEL (18 OF 56)
Scripture: Acts 8:1-8
This content is part of a series.
Persecution and the Spread of the Gospel (18 of 56)
Series: The Church in ACTSion
Wyman Richardson
Acts 8:1-8
Read Acts 8:1-8
Last year, Candida Moss published a controversial book entitled The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom. As the title suggests, Moss argues that the alleged persecution of the early Christians was greatly exaggerated and has been greatly overplayed. This plays well into charges that modern Christians are also exaggerating claims of present-day persecution.
The book has been taken apart by more than a few critics, but Michael Bird has offered one of the more insightful and powerful responses to Candida Moss.
I've taught Christians from persecuted churches in Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sudan, China, and Egypt. Persecution is no myth. These Christians, average men and women like you and I, have either seen or experienced some of the most unspeakable and inhumane evils one could mention. There is no myth here, only a cold and brutal evil that is faced by innocents.
Moss is obviously a religious academic superstar in the making...The Yanks will love her pommy accent. However, I can't help but think that a few weeks visiting churches in Juba, Karcachi, Alexandria, or Lebanon might give her some life experience to better inform her own career for a life in academics and the media. It's one thing to write about the myth of persecution from the safety of a professorial chair with minions chanting for more tweets to bash the religious right; but it might be a harder myth to perpetuate after listening to a mother in Juba telling you what a Muslim mob did to her eighteen-month year old son.
Michael Bird has a point, and one that should be heeded by those who would deny the reality of the persecution of the Church throughout the ages. The fact is that people of God have been attacked from the very beginning, and they are being attacked in our day as well. One of the sobering but encouraging i ...
Series: The Church in ACTSion
Wyman Richardson
Acts 8:1-8
Read Acts 8:1-8
Last year, Candida Moss published a controversial book entitled The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom. As the title suggests, Moss argues that the alleged persecution of the early Christians was greatly exaggerated and has been greatly overplayed. This plays well into charges that modern Christians are also exaggerating claims of present-day persecution.
The book has been taken apart by more than a few critics, but Michael Bird has offered one of the more insightful and powerful responses to Candida Moss.
I've taught Christians from persecuted churches in Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sudan, China, and Egypt. Persecution is no myth. These Christians, average men and women like you and I, have either seen or experienced some of the most unspeakable and inhumane evils one could mention. There is no myth here, only a cold and brutal evil that is faced by innocents.
Moss is obviously a religious academic superstar in the making...The Yanks will love her pommy accent. However, I can't help but think that a few weeks visiting churches in Juba, Karcachi, Alexandria, or Lebanon might give her some life experience to better inform her own career for a life in academics and the media. It's one thing to write about the myth of persecution from the safety of a professorial chair with minions chanting for more tweets to bash the religious right; but it might be a harder myth to perpetuate after listening to a mother in Juba telling you what a Muslim mob did to her eighteen-month year old son.
Michael Bird has a point, and one that should be heeded by those who would deny the reality of the persecution of the Church throughout the ages. The fact is that people of God have been attacked from the very beginning, and they are being attacked in our day as well. One of the sobering but encouraging i ...
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