Rome
Circa 66 AD

Dear Christian Recruit,

Thank you so much for your interest in joining the Church. Your letter was forwarded to me by the former head of the evangelization and recruiting department. Unfortunately, he met a similarly grisly fate as his predecessor. They were both beheaded and stoned (though not in that order 😉

You asked about the benefits of being a Christian; well things have been a bit dodgy for this young Church. I’m sure that in the future things will get a lot better for Christians throughout the world but for now…

As you might already know Christianity is illegal. Very illegal. And the Roman Empire has been…shall we say…brutal. We’re persecuted so terribly that many of us are in hiding and oh yeah, we’re killed quite often. And not just killed but killed in pretty nasty and inventive ways. That’s why I’m always surprised to see letters like yours in my inbox. In the interest of full disclosure pretty much everyone affiliated with the Church from Jesus on down suffers terribly and then is killed. Somehow the recruiting office says this persecution is having the opposite effect than one would logically expect. But it just doesn’t seem like sound long term planning if you ask me…

Continue reading at the National Catholic Register>>>