What do you think?
Rate this book
Hated without a Reason: The Remarkable Story of Christian Persecution Over the Centuries
This uplifting and moving book surveys worldwide Christian persecution throughout history by revealing the different ways that real discipleship attracts persecution. In this easy to read book Dr. Sookhdeo provides scholarly references to much material that is little known in the West with inspiring stories of courageous people. He powerfully shows how history has repeated itself in widely different contexts and gives lessons from the past that are relevant and applicable today.
268 pages, Paperback
Published April 8, 2019
1 person is currently reading
21 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 11, 2020
Touching and humbling. To read about pain is never easy. But it's a good call to follow in the footsteps of a suffering, dying Saviour. I cried over the pains of the saints, yet at the same time am stoked by their example of courage, and rejoice that they got their final joys.
November 29, 2021
This is a difficult book to review. Because the author is a convicted sex offender. Who is currently "the International Director of Barnabas Fund" according to his bio on Barnabas Today as viewed on 29 November, 2021 (though I sought hard to find any reference to this anywhere else). I just don't know how to process the above information. I don't understand how the Christian world thinks it's ok to be ok with this. Anyway, I read the book knowing this and the following review is my attempt to be objective about the book.
----------------
This was a helpful book written by someone who clearly knows his stuff. I really appreciated the way the book was written from the perspective of a world Christian. As such, it addressed persecution more broadly than usual, and with more emphasis on parts of church history that tend to get less emphasis in typical western histories. There is extensive coverage of the history of persecution in the early East, in North Africa, in Asia, and in India. These helped fill in some gaps for me in my understanding of church history as well as persecution.
The book is written more as a history than a devotional. It does not engage heavily in anecdotes, but focuses instead on the broad sweep of persecution. The author deals extensively with the ideas and contexts that led to persecution and the shape of that persecution which was really helpful in developing a realistic view of what persecution looked like in different settings.
I thought the book might be a bit of a downer to read because of the topic, but it really wasn't. It was fascinating, enlightening, and edifying. The material gave me a new appreciation of the power of the gospel throughout history since the time of Jesus.
Unfortunately, toward the end, the author starts to lean into a culture wars approach to contemporary Christianity. I was embarrassed to see a specialist on religious persecution indulging in notions of the USA, the UK, and Australia as places where persecution is a substantive issue (p. 185ff). This is, unfortunately, consistent with the pattern I've observed from the author and the organisation he leads in the last decade.
All in all, a very helpful book that seems basically credible.
On it's own merits, this book gets four stars from me. As you can see, I have taken the issues related to the author into account in my actual rating.
----------------
This was a helpful book written by someone who clearly knows his stuff. I really appreciated the way the book was written from the perspective of a world Christian. As such, it addressed persecution more broadly than usual, and with more emphasis on parts of church history that tend to get less emphasis in typical western histories. There is extensive coverage of the history of persecution in the early East, in North Africa, in Asia, and in India. These helped fill in some gaps for me in my understanding of church history as well as persecution.
The book is written more as a history than a devotional. It does not engage heavily in anecdotes, but focuses instead on the broad sweep of persecution. The author deals extensively with the ideas and contexts that led to persecution and the shape of that persecution which was really helpful in developing a realistic view of what persecution looked like in different settings.
I thought the book might be a bit of a downer to read because of the topic, but it really wasn't. It was fascinating, enlightening, and edifying. The material gave me a new appreciation of the power of the gospel throughout history since the time of Jesus.
Unfortunately, toward the end, the author starts to lean into a culture wars approach to contemporary Christianity. I was embarrassed to see a specialist on religious persecution indulging in notions of the USA, the UK, and Australia as places where persecution is a substantive issue (p. 185ff). This is, unfortunately, consistent with the pattern I've observed from the author and the organisation he leads in the last decade.
All in all, a very helpful book that seems basically credible.
On it's own merits, this book gets four stars from me. As you can see, I have taken the issues related to the author into account in my actual rating.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews