Apparently among fringe right-wing Christian groups Rowan Williams is catching some heat, yet again, this time for his comments in his Easter Sermon. Referencing some recent British political happenings about wearing crosses in public, Williams boldly called Christians away from facile claims to being persecuted victims in the big bad secular world, opting instead to inject a little knowledge and reality into the the theatrics that are all too common amongst the power-starved Christian right:

It is not the case that Christians are at risk of their lives or liberties in this country simply for being Christians. Whenever you hear overheated language about this, remember those many, many places where persecution is real and Christians are being killed regularly and mercilessly or imprisoned and harassed for their resistance to injustice. Remember our brothers and sisters in Nigeria and in Iraq, the Christian communities of southern Sudan fearing the outbreak of another civil war, the Christian minorities in the Holy Land facing the extinction of their two-thousand year old presence there; or our own Anglican friends in Zimbabwe, still – as I reminded this Cathedral congregation at Christmas – subject to routine attack from the security forces and locked out of their churches. That’s not our situation, thank God, and we need to keep a sense of perspective, and to redouble our prayers and concrete support.

See what he did here? How he talked about actual persecution? How he called us to stop frenetically chattering about how we are no longer in control of Western civilization and instead simply pray and help those who are actually suffering?

Its truly amazing how conservative Christians are, as whole, more concerned about petty bureaucratic inconveniences to them than about the actual suffering and death of (non-white) Christians throughout the world.