There is no qualitative difference in the nature of these persecutions regardless of religion. This rights-based perspective is extremely important today because it holds the majority to its obligation to create space for people of different faiths.
Every person has the right to follow his or her convictions to the extent that they cannot be said to be directly harmful to others, even if these convictions are false and, from the point of view of the majority, completely incomprehensible. Theologically, this perspective is also important because it upholds the right of man to follow his conscience unconditionally. It is always wrong to act against your conscience - even if your conscience is misguided.
However, beyond rights thinking, there is a biblical perspective on the world's opposition to Christians that is uniquely Christian. Because according to the New Testament, the persecution Christians face is linked to Jesus' own suffering. In essence, it is not Christians as a minority or as representatives of certain unpopular views that the opposition is directed against. It is Christ in the believers.
In this sense, the world's opposition to the church becomes not just a problem to be dealt with by politicians and human rights organizations (it is), but a condition that expresses the believer's union with Christ. The pressure that the faith experiences from the world does not always have to take the form of direct persecution; it can also take the form of seduction. As Grundtvig put it in the hymn "Thou hast laid thy hand upon the plow of the Lord":
So go forward then, in the name of Jesus,
Despite the stones and despite the sticks!
And do not stop, even if you have a hat
You bid proud blocks!
On embers we all walk for a while,
Whatever skin has the fake reason;
By Niels Nymann Eriksen, parish and immigrant pastor at Apostelkirken in Vesterbro Parish in Copenhagen
