Imagining Persecution

Why American Christians Believe There Is a Global War against Their Faith

By Jason Bruner

Rutgers University Press

Many American Christians have come to understand their relationship to other Christian denominations and traditions through the lens of religious persecution. This book provides a historical account of these developments, showing the global, theological, and political changes that made it possible for contemporary Christians to claim that there is a global war on Christians. This book, however, does not advocate on behalf of particular repressed Christian communities, nor does it argue for the genuineness (or lack thereof) of certain Christians’ claims of persecution. Instead, this book is the first to examine the idea that there is a “global war on Christians” and its analytical implications. It does so by giving a concise history of the categories (like “martyrs”), evidence (statistics and metrics), and theologies that have come together to produce a global Christian imagination premised upon the notion of shared suffering for one’s faith. The purpose in doing so is not to deny certain instances of suffering or death; rather, it is to reflect upon the consequences for thinking about religious violence and Christianity worldwide using terms such as a “global war on Christians.”

Jason Bruner's Imagining Persecution offers a polite, probing, and ultimately devastating deconstruction of the common American Christian belief that there is at this time a global war of persecution against Christians. This is an extraordinarily important book. In its own understated way, it raises this fundamental question—why exactly is it so important for conservative American Christians to believe they are part of a globally persecuted community? David P. Gushee, author of Still Christian: Following Jesus Out of American Evangelism.

A significant contribution. David Smith, author of Religious Persecution and Political Order in the United States

Persecution, Martyrdom, and Christian Identity: 7 Questions with Jason Bruner Sacred Matters

New Books Network - New Nooks in Christian Studies' interview with Jason Bruner New Books Network - New Nooks in Christian Studies

Jason Bruner's Imagining Persecution offers a polite, probing, and ultimately devastating deconstruction of the common American Christian belief that there is at this time a global war of persecution against Christians. This is an extraordinarily important book. In its own understated way, it raises this fundamental question—why exactly is it so important for conservative American Christians to believe they are part of a globally persecuted community? David P. Gushee, author of Still Christian: Following Jesus Out of American Evangelism.

A significant contribution. David Smith, author of Religious Persecution and Political Order in the United States

Persecution, Martyrdom, and Christian Identity: 7 Questions with Jason Bruner Sacred Matters

New Books Network - New Nooks in Christian Studies' interview with Jason Bruner New Books Network - New Nooks in Christian Studies

JASON BRUNER is an associate professor of global Christianity in the School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies at Arizona State University in Tempe. He is author of Living Salvation in the East African Revival in Uganda.

Contents

Preface
1. Coming to Terms: Christians, Martyrs, and Persecution
2. Christians, Martyrdom, and Persecution from the New Testament to the Reformation
3. Religious Persecution and American Christianity
4. A Global War on Christians?
5. The Global Politics of the Suffering Body of Christ

Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index

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