A few weeks ago, I attended a talk by Bishop Mano Rumalshah of Pakistan to hear about life as a Christian in a land of violent persecution. He spoke of the day and aftermath of the bombing of All Saints’ Church in Peshawar on September 22, 2013. The bombers came to their parlor, as they socialized with food and drink after Sunday services, as Anglican congregants do. The attack essentially wiped out a generation of the congregation. Some of the dead he had christened, then buried only a few years later.

Rumalshah and his wife, Benita, returned to Pakistan shortly after that talk, just in time for the twin bombings in Lahore last month. More death. More horror.

He told us about the cross he wears around his neck. He’s only taken it off once since becoming a bishop: by request, at the Western Wall. Even in Pakistan, where Christian persecution grows, he wears it, always. He regrets the time he did remove it.

Wearing a Cross

When we lived in London, I attended a Tuesday morning women’s Bible study. The United Kingdom has gone further down the road of cultural assumptions against Christians than the United States, so one morning our discussion turned to wearing crosses. The British and Scottish women found it difficult, like walking about while wearing a dunce cap. There, only true believers wear a cross. While U.K. society accepts cultural Christianity, such as going to church on Christmas and Easter, actual believing is just not right.

Andrew Suttford put it colorfully in his book, “Unapologetic, The Emotional Lives of Christians,” when explaining that he and his wife would soon have to break the news of their actual faith and attendant lack of cool to their young daughter:

Nothing is so sad, from the style point of view, as the mainstream taste of the day before yesterday. If we couldn’t help ourselves, if we absolutely had to go shopping in the general area of woo-hoo and The-Force-Is-Strong-In-You-Young-Skywalker, we could at least have picked something new and colorful, something with a bit of gap-year spiritual zing to it, possibly involving chanting and spa therapies. Instead, we chose old buildings that smell of dead flowers, and groups of pensioners laboriously grinding their way through “All Things Bright and Beautiful.” Rebel cool? Not so much.

I didn’t realize how strong these assumptions against Christians were in the United Kingdom until we had lived there for a while. Here in the United States, wearing a cross is often a pose, something some do to signal they are good people. I had to unlearn that.

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