Christians are falling foul of the growing dogmatic commitment to equality and diversity in the secular West. Christian prayer and evangelism in the workplace are now seen as serious sins against the new morality.
Ironically, Christians believe in equality and diversity, but the problem is we believe in them Christianly.
We believe that human beings are all equally created in the image of God (James 3v9) and, following the Fall, are now equally dependent on the only Name given under heaven by which we must be saved from eternal judgement - God's one and only Son, Jesus Christ the Lord (Acts 4v12).
We also believe in diversity: that the God-created family unit is intrinsically and wonderfully diverse, with a husband, a wife and dependent children. This God-created norm is reflected for example in St Paul's letter to the Ephesians chapters 5 and 6 with specific apostolic instructions for the diverse members of the family - husbands who are to love their wives, wives who are to submit to their husbands and children who are to respect their parents.
But that is not the kind of equality and diversity the virulently secular politically-correct establishment has in mind.
It is worth reflecting that persecution was the norm for Christians in the apostolic era. In the 60s AD, from his dungeon in Rome, the Apostle Paul wrote to his fellow-worker for the Christian Gospel, Timothy: 'All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted' (2 Timothy 3v12). The persecution we are becoming subject to in the West is far less violent than that suffered by Christians at the hands of the Roman authorities and far less extreme than that suffered by Christians in many Muslim countries today.
Of course, the post-modern establishment in the West is singling out Christians. And no, they will not treat Muslims or Hindus or tree-huggers in the same way.
In the western world, Christians are the primary threat to their secular hegemony. The religious background of the majority of people living in the democratic West is Christian. The great-grandparents of the overwhelming majority of primary-aged children in western countries would have been baptised, married and buried according to Christian rites. And many of their living grandparents would have had some kind of church connection.
The Christian church is the place of corporate worship the majority of Westerners don't go to. Satan's servants in the politically-correct, equality and diversity thought police are desperately afraid they might come back.
May God give us grace to cope with the return to New Testament normality - Cranmer's Curate is very conscious of his pampered background and his love of his creature comforts. Both in the New Testament and in Church history persecution of Christians is accompanied by a multiplication of opportunities to witness to the living Christ in the midst of suffering for his Name, as the Apostle Peter observed: 'for to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps' (1 Peter 2v21 - ESV).
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