Why There is No Persecution of Christians in Canada

I recently recorded a new video that I called “The So-Called Canadian Persecution of the Church.” You can watch it at the bottom of this post.

At the time I am writing this, I have had a number of comments, all of them completely disagreeing with my dismissal of a persecution in Canada. Why can I not see what is so plain to them?

One of the comments is that closing of the church buildings was a parallel to the sacrifices to Caesar that the early church were pressured to perform. People all across the Empire were expected to do that but it was only the Christians (and the Jews) who had a problem of burning a pinch of incense to the Emperor.

The idea is that the closing of the church buildings during periods of the pandemic is like that since meeting in-person is an essential part of our faith. Requiring us to not meet in-person is like requiring us to worship Caesar.

But is it?

I do value in-person worship services and I am so thankful that we are currently meeting in-person. I would never argue against that.

But to suggest not meeting in-person, especially in large groups, is a sin and that submitting to health regulations is being forced to compromise an essential of our faith is nonsense.

Here is the difference. Sacrificing to Caesar was always wrong but the same is not true for either staying home or cancelling an in person service. Many people are not able to attend for various reasons without it being sin. Many churches have cancelled services because of weather or other circumstances.

If it is not a betraying of the gospel to miss in-person services for those reasons, then it was not a betraying of the gospel for church buildings to be closed during a pandemic.

Here is the other thing to keep in mind. The health regulations prevented large gatherings. The evidence from the New Testament is that the early church met in homes and not large buildings. It is likely that the majority of the early Christian gatherings were close in size to the gathering limits during the pandemic.

If certain Christians see the maintaining of large in-person gatherings as essential and not secondary to the gospel, then they should be condemning those (majority) of congregations that did close for the pandemic and refuse any type of fellowship until there is public repentance.

If closing for a pandemic is parallel to the worship of Caesar, then those “faithful” churches should look to how the ancient church readmitted those who burned the pinch of incense.

But I think that most people can see that those two events are very different. Most of the pastors that I know were willing to close their buildings, not because they “worship” the government but because they sincerely wanted to keep their people safe. I know that was my motivation.

We also need to ask why the government imposed such health regulations. If it was part of an intentional plan to persecute the Christian churches, we need to ask these three questions:

1. Why were other organizations that included public gatherings included in the regulations?
2. Why did they allow the online broadcasting of Christian worship that actually made it easier for us to spread the gospel to friends and family?
3. Why did they lift the restrictions once COVID-19 cases fell to a certain level?

I am going to say something that might seem harsh but I think is the truth. I believe that there are some western Christians, specifically conservative evangelicals, who want the opportunity to claim persecution, but without the actual danger that comes with true persecution in other countries.

If what happened in Canada was the persecution of Christians, we had the most comfortable persecution ever. Even those congregations that stayed open and were fined and had pastors arrested have suffered nothing like what is happening where real persecution is taking place. I doubt that Christians in China or North Korea have much sympathy for the poor Canadians that had to close their buildings for a few months.

Is Canada persecuting Christians? NO.