new church life: march / april 2014
Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you
falsely for My sake. (Matthew 5:11)
We often think that we live in an age and in a country where persecution for
religious beliefs is rare. Yet it happens all too frequently, especially as religious
beliefs of all kinds give way to an increasingly secularized society in North America
and Europe. Religious beliefs are increasingly seen as harsh, discriminatory and
judgmental, and those who hold them can be vilified. Arguments against religious
beliefs, and in favor of popular ideas, are often made quite convincingly by very
intelligent people. We read:
The intelligent are ruled by desires for high position and monetary gain, and
consequently by self-love and love of the world, more than the simple are. They also
have a greater ability to justify evils and the falsities resulting from those loves by the
use of factual knowledge, which the intelligent possess more abundantly than the
simple do. (Arcana Coelestia 10492)
This ability to justify evils also has the effect of condemning the innocent and
intimidating people who believe what the Word teaches.
But Balaam’s [