The Evangelical Persecution Complex: Part 1 - They Hate You
The politics of imagined martyrdom
Hello everyone, welcome back. And welcome to all my new readers—looks like there’s 20 of you since my introduction post. Hello! Happy to have you here.
I'm putting the advice column idea on the shelf for now. I feel more creative energy flowing in the direction of personal essays, so I'm going to focus on that. Sorry that I haven't hit my goal of publishing a new piece twice per month. For what it's worth, I'll be posting once a week for at least the next three weeks. I've written a longer essay that I've broken into three parts, each regarding different aspects of the Evangelical Right's fixation on martyrdom.
On a personal level, I want to talk about the Evangelical Persecution Complex because it's one of the first things that started unraveling my belief in God. I was already on the fence; I never felt fully bought in to what my parents and church were teaching. But I went along with it because, frankly, I didn't feel like I had the option not to. Once I got into college, it was harder to reconcile what I had been taught my whole life with the material world I saw around me. For as long as I can remember, my parents and virtually every adult in my life, made it seem like everyone who isn't a Christian harbors intense resentment towards all believers. When that turned out to be untrue, I felt like I had been lied to.
I like to describe it this way. Imagine if you were a fighter getting ready for the biggest boxing match of your life. You spent years training for it, because this is no ordinary boxing match: in this fight, there's multiple people coming at you. You have to defend yourself against everyone at the same time. So, you're all greased up, with your best pair of boxing gloves, heading out to the fight you've been preparing for since childhood. Then you walk through the door into the supposed battle field and realize that you're actually in a library. You're standing there, gloves on, ready for a fight, but nobody is paying attention to you. They're just quietly reading and minding their own business.
This is what college felt like for me. And when I realized that my whole life I had been misled, that it wasn't actually "everyone versus the Christians," pretty soon my whole faith started falling apart because I began to wonder what other lies my parents and church had told.
Beyond the personal aspect, there's a political angle I want to explore as well. The reason you haven't heard from me in a while is because I scrapped what I was previously working on and started writing this series after the assassination attempt on former president Trump. I know, so much has happened since then that it somehow feels like a distant memory even though it was only a few weeks ago. But I want to talk about it, because I have an anxious suspicion that the assassination attempt colliding with the Evangelical martyrdom fetish is going to be a powder keg.
I'll get into the political ramifications in the last installment of this series. Let's kick this off with a lighter topic: Christian pop culture.
(Jesus) Freaks and Geeks
Anyone who grew up in an evangelical home is familiar with the 1995 youth group anthem "Jesus Freak" by DC Talk. The song is about being true to your faith even if people make fun of you…or behead you (things really escalate in the 2nd verse). The implication for young evangelicals who grew up with this song was: out there in the real world, people are going to give you the business for all this Jesus stuff. Don't be like Peter, who pretended not to know Jesus. Just imagine how that must have made Jesus feel? No, we are proud of our faith and we're not going to keep it a secret!
However, in the DC Talk Extended Universe, the stakes of being a Jesus Freak are quite a bit higher than schoolyard bullying. Following the success of the song, DC Talk released the book Jesus Freaks, which then spun off a second volume and an ambush of merchandise including a devotional and a Jesus Freak journal…presumably for documenting all the persecution you encounter?
Jesus Freaks and its sequel highlighted brutal violence waged against believers who were steadfast in their faith no matter what the consequences. The problem is that the books stripped away a lot of crucial information in these stories, with little discussion of the political climate and cultural context.
As a disclaimer, from research I did—which was barely any—I couldn't find much written about these books. So, take this with a grain of salt. But what I've gathered is that rather than blatantly lie, the authors of Jesus Freaks strategically left out many details in order to more effectively craft their narrative. Had those details been included, it would paint a very different story. For example, in many of the situations discussed, people of other faiths were murdered too, as were many atheists. A review on Amazon pointed out that some of the stories fixate on Protestants who were killed by Catholics, with zero discussion of the Catholics who were murdered by Protestants. In addition, some of the countries where these stories took place were victims of European colonization and exploitation that left them economically devastated, leading to widespread violence. Sure would have been nice for DC Talk to include some of that context.
While “Jesus Freak” and the books it spun off is a good example of the Evangelical Persecution Complex, I'd like to share a more potent, if lesser known song that takes martyrdom to a whole other level.
They Hate You
While it was nowhere near as successful as "Jesus Freak" from a commercial standpoint, "They Hate You," the title track from Christian punk band FBS's 2005 album, might rival DC Talk's 1995 hit for Most Persecuted Christian Song.
FBS was kind of like a Christian version of The Casualties. I saw them once, a little over a decade ago at the now defunct Cornerstone Music Festival. Had I been in my early teens, I might have been mesmerized by their tall Mohawks and studded leather jackets. But seeing them in my early 20's, all I could think was, "man, I wish I was watching The Casualties right now instead of whatever the fuck this is."
Not many people outside the niche of obscure Christian punk music knew about FBS, but they were a big deal at Cornerstone, revered both by Christian punks and Christian punk bands alike. In fact, I first encountered "They Hate You" not from FBS's set, but from the band Grave Robber—who were, and I am not making this up, a Christian version of The Misfits.
The lead singer of Grave Robber introduced the FBS cover as a song of hatred, declaring: "the world doesn't love you!" before launching into their own interpretation of the song, which was like the original with a few extra Misfits-style whoooaaaaaooooo's scattered throughout.
Take a look at the lyrics to "They Hate You" by FBS.
(As a side note, while FBS was widely known in the underground Christian punk scene, they're obscure enough that I couldn't find the lyrics to this song anywhere on the internet. I messaged a guy on Discogs named Ben who had the CD listed for sale, and he agreed to send me a picture of the lyrics so that I can reference them here. He even pulled the CD out of the shrink wrap in order to take a picture of the lyrics sheet, which undoubtably reduced the value he can sell it for, so that was incredibly kind of him. Thank you, Ben).
Step thru the doorway
And read the writing on the wall
They all laugh and mock you
They are hoping to watch you fall
They hate you, but they hated me before
They hate you, but they hated me before
I called you out to be my child
And that is why they have turned their backs on you
They beat you, they stone you
Despise you because you bear my name
But hold your head child
Remember they treated me the same
Wow. Talk about a persecution complex. There's a lot to unpack here. Let's examine the lyrics line by line.
Step thru the doorway
I'm not sure which doorway FBS is referring to. But this first line reminds me of a sign that is hanging over the door as you're leaving many American churches which reads "you are now entering your mission field." It serves as a reminder to evangelicals, both of their duty to evangelize, and of the separation between the church and the rest of the world. You step through the door, you're no longer surrounded by other believers in the safety of your house of worship. The doorway serves as a metaphor, in both the aforementioned sign and this in song, for the imagined barrier between evangelicals and the rest of the world; a material manifestation of the “us versus them” mentality.
And read the writing on the wall
They all laugh and mock you
If this mentality is instilled in you throughout your childhood, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. You get into college and say some goofy nonsense like "dinosaurs and humans existed at the same time and were even friends before the Great Flood because carnivores didn't exist before the Great Flood" and all the normal people look at you and say, "what the fuck?" Their reaction might not even be one of malice; they're just stunned to hear something so blatantly untrue and absurd and they don't know what to do besides laugh. But because you have shields up from everything you were taught, their laughter cuts, and this reinforces the belief system that non-believers hate you.
They are hoping to watch you fall
We were told that "the world"—evangelical jargon that can mean a few different things, but in this context means non-believers—wants to see Christians fail; that they're watching your every move, waiting to pounce as soon you make the slightest mistake. This is often used as a way to tell young believers to take extra caution in how they present themselves to the outside world. I even remember hearing a youth pastor lecture us on how if we have Christian bumper stickers on our cars, then make sure not to get road rage or drive recklessly, so as not to misrepresent Christ. Personally, I feel like not wanting to cause a car wreck should be a better motivator to drive safely. But okay.
They hate you, but they hated me before
The chorus of the song is a reference to a bible verse that is often used in church and youth group settings to reinforce this belief system.
“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you." -John 15:18 (NKJV)
Supposedly, this is a prophetic verse, with Jesus advising the 12 disciples on what was to come for the early church. It doesn't make sense to apply it to today's world, 2000 years later. I know I might have some readers who don't believe a literal Jesus existed, but my point here is that you can't take something that was written 2000 years ago, in a completely different time, in a completely different place, in a completely different cultural and political climate, and apply it to your own personal life. But that's exactly what Evangelical Christians do, with this passage in particular. It's a cherry-picked verse misappropriated and leveraged by American Protestants to persuade members to cling to their church and fear the outside world. Speaking of which…
I called you out to be my child
And that is why they have turned their backs on you
I've been dancing around the word "cult" throughout this entire essay, but I'm going to go ahead and deploy the c-word now. As anyone who has studied cults or escaped one can tell you, one way they keep people from leaving is by cutting them off from their loved ones. If you've been taught that the reason your friends and family have trouble connecting with you is because you were chosen by God to be his child…I mean, do I even have to explain how dangerous this is? It is used as a wedge between (usually new) believers and the people who care about them. To be clear, I don't believe all evangelical communities are cults. But this lyric is alarmingly cult-like, and what's more disturbing is how reflective it is of what is taught in many evangelical churches.
They beat you, they stone you
Despise you because you bear my name
This is alluding to another verse in the bible in which Jesus is addressing his twelve disciples.
"And you will be hated by all for My name's sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved." -Matthew 10:22 (NKJV).
In context, like the verse mentioned earlier, it is specifically about resistance the disciples were going to face because of the radical changes that this emerging religion was proposing which went against both the laws of the land and the popular views of god(s) at that time. Again, it's not evergreen. You cannot pluck a random verse from the Bible—which was written a couple millennia ago and translated multiple times over before it was ever available in English—and, stripping it of all relevant and necessary context, apply it to your own personal life.
But hold your head child
Remember they treated me the same
This lyric tells listeners that whatever persecution they endure, Jesus endured as well. You know, pick up your cross and follow me, yada yada yada. In other words, to endure persecution is to be Christ-like.
I wanted to go through this song line by line because I think it's a perfect example of how evangelicals are taught to think about the world around them. The Evangelical Persecution Complex, the us versus them mentality that is reinforced over and over again, is foundational to every aspect of this subculture. It influences their perception of all the interactions they have outside of church. It influences their relationships with each other and with anyone they encounter in the outside world. And, as you will see in the next two installments of this series, it also influences their lifestyle choices and the way they engage with politics.
Furthermore, this mentality is how far right evangelical communities can get away with disseminating radical ideology to their followers. A good example of this is anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. Many evangelicals become closed off to anyone who tries to explain that their anti-LGBTQ beliefs are bigoted, and the Evangelical Persecution Complex reinforces this: if you tell someone from the Evangelical Right that their views on the LGBTQ community are hateful and archaic, they reflexively interpret this as persecution against themselves, ironically failing to see that they are the ones inflicting harm on another community. Perhaps the most heartbreaking consequence of this is the many LGBTQ folks, including teens and young adults, whose own families cut them out of their lives.
Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed part one of this three part series. As a little teaser: next week I will share a story from my childhood that might be one of the most bizarre things I've ever experienced. See you then.
-John from A Broken Arrow
I didn't learn about the Holocaust until my early teens. I grew up in Indiana attending a Methodist church. Because my school, my church, and my parents didn't share this soul-shattering reality with me, I lost faith and confidence with all of these, but in particular, I lost faith in the church. In one instant, I went from being a committed church-goer who believed wholeheartedly in God to a skeptic with no firm ground under me. It was an emotional experience more than an intellectual one. I was taught that God was good and that religious people were good. If that was true, how did God, Christians, and the church let the Holocaust happen?
The last sentence especially struck a chord with me. Supposedly Christ's love is unconditional, but Christians' love is strictly conditional. At least the American Bible Belt's interpretation of it