Reply #5: The Early Tudor Era could have taught him about "persecution."

[onager]

"OK, this week you're all Catholic."

"I thought we were all Protestant?"

"No, that was last week. Convert or..."

"Or we don't go to heaven?"

"No, you get burned at the stake."

"Oh..."

...nations where Christians are violently persecuted such as Saudi Arabia, China and Pakistan.

I HATE these kind of statements, because I don't want to be seen as defending the damn Saudis. And I'm not.

But I did live there for 2 years, and Xians are certainly NOT "violently persecuted" in Saudi Arabia.

They aren't allowed to convert Muslims and they can't openly hold church services. That's pretty much the extent of the "violent persecution."

What they do is quietly meet at somebody's house on Sundays for prayer etc., on a rotating basis. I worked with a lot of American Xians who did exactly that every Sunday morning.

Saudi officialdom knows that too, and usually turns a blind eye to it.

Yes, a few years ago a Filipino nutjob was "jailed for Xianity." The Western press whipped that up into a frenzy of speculation that he might be executed.

But from what I read, he was actively trying to convert his Muslim co-workers - IOW, doing exactly what he was told NOT to do when he took a job in Saudi Arabia.

The Saudis kept him in jail for a few days, then sent him home.