I find it rather bizarre when ministers say that fellow ministers who have been charged and/or imprisoned aren't being persecuted. But that is what men at TGC Canada have been loudly saying for months now. And some of my own colleagues in NAPARC churches have said the same.
But that is surely because they haven't been charged and they aren't facing prison. And why aren't they?
Because they have settled for 'state sanctioned churches'.
It is fascinating to me that we can pray for the persecuted believers in China when we know full well they don't have to be persecuted if they don't want to be. All they have to do is join the state church. Problem solved. So why do we call that persecution? Because it is easier to admire faithfulness from a distance than it is to imitate it. It is easier to build monuments to men who lived hundreds of years ago than it is to live like them. There is is one simple reason so many ministers in Canada are not being persecuted. They are not obeying.
If people lack the spirit of discernment regarding the problem of obeying the state in things which contradict the Bible it is not a wonder that they lack discernment in many other things regarding spiritual life...