The "Myth" of Persecution?

A couple of my friends over at The American Catholic - Don McClarey and Darwin - have some excellent posts about a recently released book by a professor of theology at Notre Dame (of course) that attempts to call into question the history of the Church's early persecution at the hands of the Roman Empire. Read them both here and here.

As I said in my comments at The American Catholic, this professor's motivation appears quite clear (and she pretty much confirms this in her promotion of the book):

If the Church and individual Christians suffer government and/or legal sanction because their beliefs and how they practice those beliefs are at odds with cultural “norms” – be those norms abortion-on-demand, the HHS mandate, or same-sex “marriage” – they are not REALLY being persecuted. In essence, the Church and individual Christians can either get on board with the agenda or not; but if they choose not to, they wouldn’t be able to legitimately cry “persecution” if the legal fallout is not to to their liking.

Moss’s motivation, as with the motivation of many on the religious left who are critical of the Church's teachings, is actually quite transparent: political ideology trumps religious dogma.