By Phoebe Farag Mikhail

This year, Holy Week for me began with the news of the bombing of several churches in Sri Lanka celebrating Easter (on the Western calendar) and the deaths and injuries of many hundred faithful. Soon after, a British pastor published a piece in the Guardian, calling on the Western world to end its deafening silence and recognize how Christianity is the most persecuted religion in world. The Coptic Orthodox Archbishop Angealos also asked the world to recognize anti-Christianism, saying in a tweet, “It is time for us all to stand together and recognise anti-Christianism [is] as much a real phenomenon and epidemic as anti-Semitism and Islamophobia and deal with it as such.”

Indeed, the photographs of mass funerals in Sri Lanka, of children and even entire families buried after losing their lives for their faith are horrifying and heartbreaking—and sadly repeated on a regular basis globally.

Security around Coptic Orthodox Churches in Egypt, which have also witnessed many bombings around the holidays in recent years, was on high alert last week during the weekend of Orthodox Great Friday, Bright Saturday, and the Feast of the Resurrection. When the weekend passed with little incidence (except for this one), humorous memes started circulating the internet, articulating relief at being able to leave church in safety and peace this time (the one pictured shows scenes from a movie about a plane landing safely after facing the possibility of a crash, with the caption, “the Christians after leaving church without a bombing”).

Jesus Christ Himself foresaw this, telling His disciples “yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service” (John 16:2, NKJV). Indeed, those killing Christians around the world think they serve God by doing so. Perhaps they also believe that they will scare Christians away from worshiping. Perhaps they believe that they will end Christianity by killing its adherents.

But they don’t seem to see the futility of killing a people who believe in the resurrection of the dead. Indeed, doing so only seems to increase their number and resolve. “You can kill us but you cannot hurt us,” St. Justin Martyr famously said. “The blood of martyrs is the seed of the church,” Tertullian also prophetically stated. Over and over again, the world watches in disbelief as the Christians forgive their persecutors and refuse to take up arms in retaliation. Many of those who watch eventually become Christians themselves so that they too can worship the King of Peace.

If you kill Christians, you can be assured that they will only increase in number. If you bomb their churches, they will show up again in greater numbers.

So if you want to kill Christianity, don’t bomb their churches. The best way to kill Christianity is to allow Christians become financially prosperous. Then they will confuse their wealth with God’s favor, and blame the poor for their troubles. They will accumulate more wealth and think twice before giving to the needy, righteously concerned about whether they “deserve” help.

If you want to kill Christianity, don’t behead Christians and televise it to the world. The best way to kill Christianity is to make Christians leaders and famous celebrities. Then they will compromise their principles, morals and ethics to get to the top—and forget that the last shall be first and the first shall be last.

If you want to kill Christianity, don’t imprison Christians for sharing their faith. The best way to kill Christianity is to allow Christians to control governments. They will confuse nationalism and patriotism to an earthly kingdom with allegiance to the Heavenly Kingdom, where there is neither “Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

Of course, there’s no guarantee. Allow Christians to be financially prosperous, and they might share all their wealth with the poor, following the words of the Shepherd of Hermas:

“So instead of fields, buy souls that are in distress, as anyone is able, and visit widows and orphans, and do not neglect them; and spend your wealth and all your possessions, which you have received from God, on fields and houses of this kind. For this is why the Master made you rich, so that you might perform these ministries for Him. It is much better to purchase fields and possessions and houses of this kind, which you will find in your own city when you go home to it. This lavish expenditure is beautiful and joyous; it does not bring grief or fear, but joy.” (pp. 58-59).

Allow Christians to lead governments, and they might just do so with integrity, as servant leaders, to mete out justice for the oppressed. If they fail to do so, they might repent, as the Emperor Theodosius did when St. Ambrose refused his entry into the church:

The Emperor, who had been brought up in the knowledge of Holy Writ, and who knew well the distinction between the ecclesiastical and the temporal power, submitted to the rebuke, and with many tears and groans returned to his palace. The Emperor shut himself up in his palace and shed floods of tears. After vain attempts to appease Ambrose, Theodosius himself at last went to Ambrose privately and besought mercy, saying “I beseech you, in consideration of the mercy of our common Lord, to unloose me from these bonds, and not to shut the door which is opened by the Lord to all that truly repent.”

Give Christians celebrity and fame, and they might just do so while maintaining their morals, ethics, and principles, thereby glorifying God in their success. JRR Tolkien, one of the most famous authors of our time, wrote this in a letter:

“[i]t may be said that the chief purpose of life, for any one of us, is to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks.” (Ware, Jim, 2006, Finding God in The Hobbit.

I’m sorry that there is no guaranteed way to kill Christianity. But I can guarantee that if you kill Christians, you won’t reduce their number. You will multiply it beyond measure, and the love of their Risen Savior might engulf you beyond your imagination, until you become one of them, too.

Joy can be found even in the midst of persecution. I write about that in my new book, Putting Joy into Practice: Seven Ways to Lift Your Spirit from the Early Church, which is now available wherever books are sold. Bulk discounts on three or more copies can be found at Paraclete Press.