When Christians are the Minority

With all the craziness going on in our nation lately, I’ve been thinking of how we as Christians are now facing the problem of being out of favor, being looked down upon or scorned in our country, and that is liable to get worse. In a sense, we have been “in power” for most of America’s history. Everyone in the States used to at least recognize God or believe we should recognize and respect Him, respect ministers, believe the Bible is the “good book,” etc. But oh, how that is changing! 

This last week, someone posted an Art Linkletter clip from years ago on Facebook. Art Linkletter was famous for his “kids say the darndest things.” What amazed me however, was the number of Bible references and Bible stories he brought up in that short clip! He very casually asked the kids things from the Bible, and they all knew immediately what he was referring to. It was obviously considered very routine for a famous entertainer to mention such things on his national program. Nowadays, I think such obviously Christian/Biblical references would never be mentioned on national TV – they would be considered too offensive or sensitive. Some would probably say it was abusive to teach children such narrow-minded beliefs, or too exclusive to just refer to one religion or worldview! Besides, I bet a lot of kids today wouldn’t even know the Bible stories Linkletter mentioned!

Even a comedy show from a few years back brings out how drastically our culture has changed and moved away from even basic biblical knowledge! But the question is, how are we to face this new situation? How should we handle it? Can we turn it around, and if so, how? These are questions all Christians should be asking.

Our best response is to be faithful in the basics, making sure we ourselves know the Bible and are asking God to help us live by it, and that we ourselves are doing our best to share and influence others for God as much as possible. At the very least, we who believe must stay faithful in our own spiritual lives, in our churches, in prayer and in being witnesses for the Lord whenever and however we possibly can. We must stand firm and speak out!

But beyond these basics, I think it’s also important for us to realize how common this tough situation has been in our Christian history. It’s not as if it’s new or rare! A brief review of Church History might do us modern American Christians a lot of good. When the Church was first established in Israel, believing Jews were a minority and were persecuted by their fellow Jews. Then, as the Gospel spread to the Roman world, the Church was in the minority and went through periods of horrific persecution from the Roman government. Eventually, the Roman Empire was “Christianized” and became the first Christian nation.

All of Western Europe was heavily Christian for the next centuries, all the way up to the world wars. Emperors, kings, and queens were crowned by popes and bishops and strong interaction between church and state was just a given. Christian, biblical influence was ubiquitous. In the West, Christianity influenced the development of democratic government, as well as capitalism, arts and sciences, the entire education system, banking, insurance, and on and on we could go. Christianity formed Western civilization and was always a big part of government, even though, of course, many people still chose sinful lifestyles and didn’t live as Christians. Even the most sinful still communicated with a biblical vocabulary and knew they had to be careful how they spoke about Christianity and faith since it was the majority worldview. Admittedly, Church and state interaction was a work in process and much of what was done we would not at all agree with today. Nevertheless, Europe was predominantly Christian in worldview.

That is our heritage in America to a greater degree than in Europe. After all, our nation was founded by believers who were seeking freedom of worship. To be elected to political office in the first centuries of our history, you had to be a believer, and up until JKF, even Roman Catholics couldn’t get elected, much less atheists or those of any non-Christian religion. We were a predominantly evangelical Christian people. Without realizing how privileged we were, we lived in that sort of a bubble and were used to being in the majority.

In other parts of the world, this wasn’t the case at all. Christianity spread to the East just a quickly as it did to the West, contrary to what many have been told, but life for believers there was very different from early times. The Byzantine Empire was strongly Christian, and its influence extended north to Slavic lands and eastward, but only as far as Persia (modern day Iran). Armenia was an early Christian country, and Egypt was heavily populated and influenced by Christians, as was Ethiopia and most of north Africa. A form of Christianity called Nestorianism spread as far as Korea and Manchuria.

But starting in the seventh century, Islam began to spread and to dominate. All of the Middle East was quickly conquered, followed by Egypt and north Africa. What had been strongly Christian for centuries passed under a shroud of Islamic darkness and domination. Christians were second class citizens (dhmmi), and their rights quickly began to be curtailed. Though early on they filled government and academic positions in the Muslim world because of their traditions of education and service, officially, their status declined. Christianity was basically snuffed out in huge areas where it had once flourished. Islam spread to Persia and India, and the Church struggled to even survive.

Later, with the Mongol invasions, the Church suffered horrific losses throughout Asia. Mongols also crushed Muslim lands at first, but later succumbed themselves to Islam. In northern lands, Slavic Christians were first crushed under the Mongols (also called Tatars or Tartars), and then, in the early 20^th century, communism brought them still more horrors. Christians in all these lands therefore, never got to experience the favor and prosperity the Church enjoyed in Western Europe. From the earliest days, they had to learn to follow Christ underground, as a persecuted minority, out of favor and with no political clout or influence.

The Church penetrated China early on, then was driven out for a time, began a resurgence in the 20^th century, only to be crushed again as Mao and his communist government forced them underground. To this day, the communist government does not approve of Christianity officially, though the numbers of believers are growing daily.

My point in all this? In large swaths of the world, the Church has never had the favored position we’ve enjoyed in the West, and we need to remember that. Now, I have always believed a good case can be made from this history that where Christ and the Gospel flourish, entire nations flourish, while those which reject Christ or prohibit the Gospel have also rejected the positive influences and blessings that Gospel brings. Those who welcome Christ and His Gospel bring favor and blessing to themselves. This seems a historically proven fact. Those who reject or try to oppose the gospel suffer for it, while making Christians in their lands suffer at the same time.

My second point regarding what Christians can learn from this review of history is that it is possible to follow Jesus and maintain our testimonies under ungodly governments, when we are a despised and ridiculed minority, and the majority around us rejects all that we stand for. It is possible, and it has been done for centuries!

But to do so, we must learn some things from Christians of those parts of the world and that particular history. Like them, we must determine that even if the majority rejects God, we will stand firm. It may be that our influence will bring the majority around and change the lands where we live. Even we in America may yet see a turnaround, a revival. We may yet see our people come to their senses and realize they have chosen ways of darkness. But even if we don’t get to see that, we must stand strong, knowing that we are on the right path, the narrow one that leads to life.

Jesus never said it would be easy. To the contrary, He promised that we would have tribulation in this world. (Jn. 16:33) He said He came to bring division and a sword (Matt. 10:34), as people divided regarding their acceptance or rejection of Him as Messiah and Son of God. We must remember that “the whole world lies under the power of the wicked one” (1 Jn. 5:19). Satan is “the god of this age.” (2 Cor. 4:4) Broad is the way that leads to destruction, and most people obviously choose that broad way. (Matt. 7:13) But as Joshua said, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord! (Josh. 24:15) We know He is God. He is Lord of heaven and earth, and Lord over all of time and all of history. That becomes less obvious when we’re in the minority, but we must be assured of it.

One day, all will give account to Him. They may be in the majority now, but on that day, each of them will stand alone before the God they have ignored or rejected. Woe to them!

But we are and shall be blessed, if we stand firm and faithful to our God, no matter what may come. We must rely on His grace to help us not get discouraged by the many errors of the majority around us, their foolish rejection of common sense and wisdom, their rebellion and sinfulness. We must continually ask Him to help us to love and not hate them, and to do all we can to turn them from darkness to light. We must stay strong in faith, and never yield to the majority as they travel on their hell-bound way.

Jesus said the love of many would grow cold in the last days, because of the widespread sin and rebellion. (Matt. 24:12) But if we abide in Him and keep our eyes always upon Him, thank God, that need not happen to us! (Jn. 15:5)