Enemies of Totalitarianism

"Let us not forget why the Christians were killed. They were not killed because they worshiped Jesus.... Nobody cared who worshiped whom so long as the worshiper did not disrupt the unity of the state, centered in the formal worship of Caesar. The reason the Christians were killed was because they were rebels....

"If they had worshiped Jesus and Caesar, they would have gone unharmed, but they rejected all forms of syncretism. They worshiped the God who had revealed himself in the Old Testament, through Christ.... And they worshiped him as the only God. They allowed no mixture: All other Gods were seen as false gods....

"No totalitarian authority nor authoritarian state can tolerate those who have an absolute by which to judge that state.... Because the Christians had an absolute... standard by which to judge not only personal morals but the state, they were counted as enemies of totalitarian Rome and were thrown to the beasts."


- Francis Schaeffer, How Should We then Live?, 1976, pps. 24, 26, 29.