The United States has no formal religion and is not a “Christian Nation,” (with the constitution specifying that the government cannot force a specific religion), but clearly Christianity is the religion with the most political power.

• 63% of Americans identify as Christian.
• As of 2021:
  • 88.5% of the US House of Representatives identified as Christian, and 54.5% identified as protestant.
  • 86.7% of the US Senate identified as Christian, and 59.2% identified as protestant.
• All but two US presidents (Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln) openly identified as Christian.

Despite Christianity having the most power, many Christians feel that they are being persecuted. Clearly there are many Christians that are persecuted in the Middle East and in other countries, and there have been (and still are) blatant examples of religious persecution in the United States, but why do so many Christians see themselves as victims when they hold all of the power?

I turned to Google and my own experience to try to make sense of this.

Because many people legitimately do not like them

I consider myself a Christian and I certainly dislike the attitudes of many Christians. Why? Most people are pretty OK with the basic teachings of Jesus – love thy neighbor, help those in need, be a good person, etc., but more and more Christians deviate from this message and try to force their views onto others. Many laws have been passed recently that are meant to punish people that they disagree with and to reduce their freedom. This is not taught in the gospels, and many people recognize this as the hypocrisy that it is. Jesus never said anything about gays or abortion and He welcomed the sinners, but the one thing that he passionately railed against was hypocrisy.

So I get that a lot of people don’t like the direction of many hypocritical Christians (and they probably have strong negative feelings towards them), but I see this more as responding to bad behavior than as real persecution. If you are actively trying to hurt people, you can’t blame those people for not liking you. As the bible says – you reap what you sow (or in more modern terminology – it’s fun to troll the trolls).

Because the bible talks about persecution

The bible says that Christian’s will be persecuted.

• John 15:20 says “If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you;”
• 2 Timothy 3:12 says “all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.”
• Mathew 5:10 says “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

So if God says that his followers will be persecuted and you see yourself as his followers, I guess that it’s natural to assume that you are being persecuted.

And Christians were persecuted before Constantine converted (and many Christians in other countries suffer persecution today.)

But some people may twist this logic to assume that if they perceive themselves as being persecuted (whether true or not), then that must also imply that they are God’s chosen. So if people laugh at me when I step in dog poop, that must imply that I’m right with God!

Because Anger and Hate are addictive and makes us easier to manipulate

Everybody knows that anger, hate, and fear leads to the dark side, and nobody knows it better than Fox News.  For example:

• A member of my family is OUTRAGED because Washington State added the word “spouse” to the marriage application. He now claims that the government made it illegal for him to refer to himself as a “husband”, and that this injustice far outweighs any benefits that equal rights for gays might have.

• People actually believe that there is a “War on Christmas”, despite the fact that most Americans celebrate it one way or the other.

And the near hysteria over the yearly Starbucks holiday cup is surreal.

The main problem with a persecution complex is that it causes us to focus on ourselves and can blind us to real injustices impacting others. It promotes selfishness. Many Christians who feel persecuted have little problem persecuting others religions. The family member outraged by use of the term “spouse” uses this as an excuse to take other people’s right away.

This has become a feature of mainstream Christianity, but it’s not a feature that was taught by Jesus.