The First Rule of Christian Persecution is . . .

A memorable scene from the film or novel Fight Club is Tyler Durden's declaration of the Rules of Fight Club. What makes the scene memorable are the first two rules, which are exactly the same in content: The first rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club. The emphatic repetition of the first rule as the second rule serves to stress the significance of the first.

The same logic can be applied to the unspoken rules regarding Christian persecution which, in the spirit of Fight Club, could be listed in the following manner:

• The first rule of Christian persecution is: you do not talk about Christian persecution.
• The second rule of Christian persecution is: You do not talk about Christian persecution. 
• Third rule: Do not refer to it as Christian persecution, but simply as a religious freedom conflict, religious persecution, or as a human rights issue.
• Fourth rule: If you do have to talk about Christian persecution, be sure to diminish its significance by immediately lumping it with other persecutions, or use Christian persecution as means to draw attention to other, unrelated persecutions, perceived or otherwise.
• Fifth rule: Never address the macro causes of Christian persecution around the world - such as Western military interventions or the sponsorship of certain 'freedom fighting' groups in the Middle East and Africa - but blame it instead on various extremists or governments that just magically appeared out of nowhere. 
• Sixth rule: Always ensure Christian persecution is viewed within the larger framework of the attack against freedom and democracy.
• Seventh rule: You do not ever admit or mention the scope of Christian persecution around the world, but present it instead as a series of unrelated and unconnected isolated incidents that can easily be blended into other unrelated or unconnected incidents.

Hungary must not have received the memo concerning the Rules of Christian Persecution because it organized two conferences focusing on the issue, one in 2016 and one more recently in November of 2019. Unfortunately, the conferences easily fall within the 'too little, too late' category for most parts of the Middle East where ancient Christian communities such as the Copts have already been decimated.

Still, these conferences could serve another purpose - sending out a warning signal of the Christian persecution that might yet come, particularly in the West.

Whatever the case, the world in general and the Western media specifically has followed the first two rules of Christian persecution flawlessly in the past two or three decades by simply refusing to talk about it.

Regarding the remaining rules, the United States was gracious enough to send some representatives to the 2019 Budapest conference. One of these US representatives went on to demonstrate how the remaining rules of Christian persecution work. I won't bother posting any additional information about that here, but those who feel inclined to investigate can do so by doing a quick internet search on their own.