Do Christians in America Suffer Persecution?

So I was talking about persecution recently and related a personal story about getting called out for my conservative Christian beliefs. Others talked about the changes that have taken place in the United States over the last few decades and projected into the future a few more decades arriving at the conclusion that physical persecution may not be far away.

Then someone down-played the persecution we experience by comparing it to what believers around the world are facing. True, persons who convert from Islam to Christianity face death. True, missionaries serving around the planet face arrest. I've never come close to being killed or arrested for my Christian faith.

But is it right to dismiss one form of persecution because it's not severe? In the early 90s I drove a Ford Festiva. One of my friends called it a hightop tennis shoe. Not much to look at but I drove that car til it was almost dead. We went to the Atlantic coast. We went to the Rocky Mountains. We went from Russellville, AR to Bentonville, AR twice every other weekend for several years. It was a 4-cylinder with 12" tires. Did the fact that it did not have 8 cylinders and 16" tires keep it from being a car? My son loves to play baseball. His team plays on a field with bases set 70' apart. Isn't it still baseball even though the bases are 20' shy of the MLB standard?

Christians in America have been blessed that we do not face the severity of persecution faced by Christians in other places in the world. I just don't think you can say that we don't face persecution at all because our lives are not threatened.

If we stood up for Christ the way believers do elsewhere, we might just experience the more severe persecution they do. I won't be surprised if that happens in America in my lifetime.

The real issue is not whether what you experience is persecution or not. The question we should ask ourselves as Christians in America is, "Are you standing up for Christ even if that might mean you will face persecution?"

The Christians in the earliest days counted it a privilege to suffer for the sake of the gospel. The persecution amped them up! Let's not let persecution shut us down.