[Vision2020] Persecution is Part of Christianity

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (September 30, 2006) Moscow-Pullman Daily News with a special
thanks to Ralph Nielsen -

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Persecution is part of Christianity 

Thank you for Ed Iverson's sick humor column, "Explaining Christians'
'hatred' of mankind" (His view, Sept. 23 & 24). 

He claims the Romans "smeared" the early Christians by accusing them of
"hatred of mankind" but neglected to state that Christians began to
persecute non-Christians almost as soon as Christianity was made the
official religion of the Roman Empire. Many Christians took special delight
in burning books and destroying libraries (Iverson take note). 

Refusing to become a Christian became a capital offense. Many pagans were
even burned alive, a practice that became almost synonymous with
Christianity for centuries to come. It took the recent rise of humanism,
both Christian and secular, to put a stop to religious persecution in the
West. 

Ed Iverson displays a fair amount of intolerance himself. He claims that
"Muslims worship a different god and behave differently as a consequence."
But the Pope claims that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Which
is it, Mr. Iverson? 

Isn't it interesting that it often takes a phony to recognize a phony? "Why
do you notice the sliver in your friend's eye, but overlook the timber in
your own? How can you say to your friend, 'Let me get the sliver out of your
eye.' when there is that timber in your own? You phony, first take the
timber out of your own eye and then you'll see well enough to remove the
sliver from your friend's eye." (Matthew 7:3-5; Luke 6:41-42; Gospel of
Thomas 26, all Scholars Version). 

Ralph Nielsen, Moscow

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Vandalville, Idaho

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"If the law is to be respected it must first be respectable.  There will
never be respect for our laws without enforcement, equal enforcement."

- dick Sherwin (May 3, 2006)

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