Christians are persecuted - but not in Britain If only there were more Christians like Celestina Mba, who has remained dignified and gentle throughout her legal battle with her former employer, Merton Council, over the right to refuse to work on Sundays. "It goes against my faith and I explained that to [her employer] and he understood when I told him," she told the Today programme, when asked what was wrong with her boss changing his mind and asking her to work on a Sunday. Her softly spoken defence of her attempts to make her beliefs as unobtrusive as possible did her credit. That said, I'm not convinced it does go against the Christian faith to work on a Sunday. Perhaps this is because the busiest Sundays I've ever known were during the year I worked for an Anglican church. The day traditionally taken as the Sabbath was the most exhausting of the week, with four services to keep us all on our feet until the sun had long gone down. At times it was great fun, such as pretending to eat dog food while trying to illustrate some (long-forgotten) point to a bunch of children. At others, it felt very much like work. But Miss Mba's is the latest in a string of cases that some fear are evidence of the marginalisation and persecution of British Christians. Many are supported by the Christian Legal Centre (CLC), part of the campaign group Christian Concern, which argues that "the nation has largely turned her back on Jesus." True, Britain is less culturally Christian than it was, but that is very different from saying that the proportion of people with deeply held convictions has decreased. That 1.2 million Britons have taken the Alpha course hardly suggests fading spirituality. Perhaps some religious people mistakenly assume that every dispute they face is "persecution," rather than simply a result of social awkwardness. Colin Atkinson hit the front pages in 2011 when his employer, Wakefield and District Housing Trust, asked him to remove the small palm cross that he kept on the dashboard of his van. He said it highlighted the "diabolical" treatment of British Christians, but his bosses were simply enforcing a rule that no personal objects, whether crosses or football scarves, should be displayed in the trust's vehicles. Was Mr Atkinson not asking for special treatment? He got what he wanted, in any case: the trust backed down after media pressure and protests from the BNP. Hallelujah. Could it be that far from being persecuted for their beliefs, Christians are getting worked up about the very thing their faith says is irrelevant? Even if you decked out your entire van with palm crosses, wore a crucifix so big it made your neck ache, or insisted on singing Oh, Happy Day at your desk every morning, it wouldn't make you any more or less a Christian. The fundamental requirement of Christianity is faith in Christ, not in your own actions. In other countries, Christians cannot even exercise that basic right. Open Doors is a charity supporting persecuted Christians worldwide. It has a watch list of the 50 most dangerous countries to be a Christian. Top is North Korea, with an "absolute" level of persecution. A growing underground church of 400,000 secret Christians risks labour camps, torture and public execution. There are reports of 6,000 Christians in just one prison. Even at the bottom of the list, Niger's "sparse" persecution sees converts from Islam regarded as "deviant Muslims." Of course, just because things are terrible for Christians across the world doesn't mean that believers in this country should just belt up. There are reasonable fears that Britain is on a slippery slope to aggressive secularism. But many of the cases handled by the CLC have been resolved in favour of Christians. And while it is important to test the law on religious freedoms, it is rarely wise to operate at its limits. Consider the Christian street preachers arrested for broadcasting deeply unpopular views about homosexuality. Guidance from the Association of Chief Police Officers reminds officers that free speech includes the right to say unpopular things. But why are preachers spreading these views anyway? Are their beliefs about sexuality really the first thing a would-be convert needs to hear about Christianity? The centre of the faith is God in human form dying on a cross, not a sexual morality club. The impression that standing in a town centre shouting about gay people gives is that Christianity is some kind of exam. Yet the Bible is clear that obedience to its teachings flows from faith, not good behaviour somehow "Christianising" a person into faith. If only there were more gentle Christians like Celestina Mba, regardless of the outcome of her case. But as we support her, we in the Church must beware of getting worked up about the things that shouldn't really matter.