The Age of Martyrs
Only posting a link:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-02-07-column07_ST_N.htm
I was looking up the name of some obscure minority to be the ruling power in a future century. My theory was that no Roman in the First Century could have imagined the world where the world would be dominated by an obscure cult from the province of Judea in one corner of the Empire would dominate the world, and by a language, people and culture springing from the Tin Islands near Thule from the opposite corner of the Empire, where the savages held back by Hadrian’s wall painted themselves blue with Woad, and burnt captives alive in wicker baskets. Likewise, the imperial and hegemonic powers of the future will springs from corners of the world currently obscure.
So for the most frivolous reason imaginable I became aware of the Copts.
Their two or three centuries of persecution as heretics from my Church were followed by twelve or thirteen centuries under the persecution as dhimmi infidels under the heel of the haughty Moslem conquerer. As the fortunes of history turn, in some decades the Christian minorities rose to second-class citizenship status, in other falling to the status of slaves, livestock, or vermin to be eraticated.Their history is merely a long bloody record of genocide and hatred akin to that suffered by the Jews, and, in that part of the world, by the same hands.
And they are merely one of many Christian sects throughout the lands traditionaly and anciently Christian in North Africa, Asia Minor, and the Near East.
When I was an atheist, I was, of course, completely unaware of Christian persecutions in other lands, and floated along in happy ignorance, believing that most religious persecutions were by Christians against others, not by others against Christians. Now that I am awake, I have heard statistics claiming two-thirds of all crimes of violent oppression against religious minorities worldwide are performed against Christians. Far more have died in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century for professing the name of Christ than in the ancient world.
This is the age of martyrs.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
